IE 6 Falls even lower in the market share – IE 6 Shame List grows
Netmarketshare, a site that analyzes Internet technology trends, posts that IE6 is down to 17.58% in April. Firefox 3.6 nearly matches that, and Firefox 3.5 adds another 5.8%. If you are not building your Internet or Intranet sites to match the features of modern browsers, you are missing out. If your development shop is STILL coding only to IE6, then you are committing an act of suicide because if these applications no longer work in other browsers, you are eventually going to have to refactor them.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know that IE7 has also been surpassed, and IE8 which has been out since Mar 19, 2009. Microsoft is even being quite public about their intent for Internet Explorer 9 and support of HTML5, the open h.264 video codec, and CSS3. A fact which is very welcome news.
Internet Explorer 6 was formally given a funeral back in March to help spread the word that it is DEAD, that it hinders future web innovation, that it was broken from the start, and that EVERYONE, large enterprises included should move off it to something newer. Some organizations are going so far as to officially embrace Firefox as the standard (which is the case with our company).
Google also announced they have ceased support of the browser, and other major vendors are following suit. If you are a large enterprise (which comprises the bulk of the laggards), what is your policy for web browser support? Have you made efforts to migrate off? Have you inventoried your public and private web pages for possible breakage when moving? If not, you should. If you have a public web page that is only supported in IE6, and breaks in others, go back and look at the chart linked above. You are not just hindering sales, you are hurting your brand when someone comes to your site with any other browser and sees a broken UI. It reflects poorly on the company’s image. It shows that the company is not staying up with the times.
Protect your brand and personal reputation by acting now. Otherwise, you might start seeing your name on the IE 6 Shame List. Check out the responses by the posters.
