We’re here in Las Vegas at Microsoft’s MIX11 web developer conference showing off some of our newest browser compatibility solutions. This morning Microsoft surprised all the attendees by announcing the release of a platform preview of IE10, just one month after the release of IE9.
Microsoft’s accelerated development of IE was welcomed by many attendees who want to see Redmond catch up and even lead the charge on the implementation of web standards. This new rapid release cadence by Microsoft is great for web developers who would love to see all browsers on equal footing relative to web standards. It’s also good for consumers who will see richer, more beautiful websites as leading-edge web developers take advantage of this innovation. But what about enterprises? What do they think of the rapid pace of web standards development, which by its nature, means legacy support is almost always left behind?
An article about rapid development of Firefox in Computerworld last November captured the spirit of this dilemma quite clearly:
Automatic updates and pushing the latest version out may work fine for consumers, but businesses–especially large businesses–are much slower to adapt and adopt new applications. Part of the reason that it is so hard to kill IE6 is that businesses built internal Web applications to be compatible with IE6–they are invested in that outdated browser platform and reluctant to invest the time, money, and effort necessary to test and deploy a more current browser. Imagine how difficult it will be to introduce a new major browser release every few months.
A problem for sure. The cost and time required to assess and fix web applications for even the most minor platform changes can be enormous. But Browsium was created with the mission to solve this problem for enterprise IT, enabling them to take advantage of new technology innovations without fear of breaking their fragile web applications. We call this Web Application Continuity. It extends the ROI of already deployed and paid-for applications by freezing the platform for Web applications at a ‘known good state’, and providing granular control for side-by-side compatibility regardless of the browser engine or configuration required by each application. No other solution provides this level of compatibility and control.
While web developers applaud, and enterprises say “no más”, we say “bring on the platform improvements”. Because you can have your cake and eat it too.
