What browser wars? The enterprise still loves IE 6

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

This news may come as a shocker to the tech-savvy folks in the house, but 60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser, according to Forrester Research. Meanwhile, your IT department spends a decent amount of time erecting barriers to prevent browser upgrades. Bottom line: companies need a browser policy, or they will risk productivity losses.

Welcome to the wonderful world of enterprise browser adoption. While the tech press spends a lot of time talking about Web 2.0 and even 3.0, Corporate America is on Web 0.5.

To be sure, there are good reasons for the enterprise reticence on browsers--they're a security risk. However, too few IT departments have a browser policy, and they sure don't think through potential productivity gains with advancements such as tabs, faster processing, and JavaScript engines and better search features.

Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish says in a research report:

As more and more companies look to SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions, and the Web delivers richer media, firms need to rethink their browser choices in concert with the Web-based apps they deploy. Today, the overwhelming majority of enterprises support Internet Explorer--remarkably, 60 percent of enterprises are still on IE 6.

I've witnessed the love affair with Internet Explorer 6 up close. I got a new work laptop a few months ago, and IE 6 was the default. I forgot what that browser looked like--partially because I use Firefox, but also because I had IE 7 (now IE 8) before. Luckily, the upgrade didn't kill me.

Forrester's market share stats illustrate how enterprises are sleeping through the browser wars:

• IE is the corporate browser of choice, with 78 percent of enterprises using it as a default;
• IE 6 has 60 percent of the enterprise market, with IE 7 clocking in at 39 percent;
• Firefox has 18.2 percent of the enterprise market;
• Chrome has 2 percent;
• Safari has 1.4 percent.

The problem: Information workers live in browsers all day. And companies are giving them the equivalent of a Yugo.

Why? Companies are worried about custom apps that may fail on new browsers and security and compliance. In addition, companies limit the ability to upgrade. Seventy percent of companies restrict browser choice and Web content. Forrester notes that "IT control trumps technology populism."

Ultimately, this IT control may be short sighted, argues McLeish:

Even if enterprises lag behind in browser upgrades, leading consumer-facing Web sites take advantage of browser capabilities that enhance rendering speed, better support rich Internet applications (RIAs), and offer new privacy and security capabilities. From an information worker perspective, these benefits are only part of the picture.

Features like tabs, add-ons, quick copying, improved search and navigation, and better post-crash recovery provide tangible productivity benefits for most information workers. Address bars that double as search save time, and available add-ons feature a wide range of functionality such as better remembering of passwords and saving pages to view later without creating permanent bookmarks.

The other issue: Employees use multiple browsers, depending on various applications. We've become agnostic about browsers, so limiting them is the equivalent of removing a key wrench from the toolbox.

McLeish's main point is that enterprises need a browser strategy. Luckily she cooked up this handy crib sheet to get you started:

(Credit: Forrester Research)

[Random_Walk]

"Loves"? Err, yeah. Try "Got stuck with, due to legacy issues and crap programming".

Even the Microsoft fanboy crowd (who would likely prefer you use IE 8 ) can agree that the only reason IE 6 still hangs around the enterprise is because of legacy VB and ASP crap that was so poorly coded, you're stuck with using IE6 to do anything with it.

[Maclover1]

Bingo!!!! The old internal web based applications cause most of this.

One huge point this article misses is the fact that 90% of the improvements that browsers beyond IE6 bring are consumer oriented features. Security for consumers that corporations have fixed with layers of protection and by locking down user access to the internet, multimedia features for consumers that you wont use at work. IE6 for lots of users hits a sharepoint intranet and other internal applications and it works. 90% of the users at where I work can only got to a very small list of internet sites all of which are for their job.

[TOMCAT46]

Nail on the Head.

The only reason we are still on IE6 is because of the legacy applications our business depends on. We have vendors who have not updated or tested their apps with IE7 or IE8. We have inhouse developers who no longer have the bandwidth to go back and re-test or change their applications to use the newer features in IE7 or IE8.

If it was up to the Systems side of the house, we'd be on IE 7 right now with a plan in place to move ti IE8. So don't compare IE6 to a Yugo. A Yugo is a low quality undependable piece of trash. A better comparison would be to a 1996 Toyota Camry. It might be a little old with out-of-date technology, but you can still depend on it and it will always get you where you are going.

[abcd9009]

I agree with Maclover1. And another thing to point out here is performance. IE6 takes up much less system resources than any new browser.

And finally one more reason why corporations are still on IE6 is because they are still on Windows XP. Once you move to VIsta or maybe some would skip VIsta and move directly to Windows 7, the lowest you can get is IE7 for Vista or IE8 for Win7.

[Angmarr]

# IE 6 has 60 percent of the enterprise market, with IE 7 clocking in at 39 percent;
# Firefox has 18.2 percent of the enterprise market;

60 + 70 = IE is the corporate browser of choice, with 78 percent of enterprises using it as a default
60 + 70 = 78 !?!?!?!?!?!

am i missing something?

[Michichael]

Of choice? Hardly.

The problem is most of the industry's programming relies on IE6 and breaks in IE7 for business apps - our finance software won't render tables in 7 or anything else because it was hashed for IE6. So we can't upgrade finance.

[tm_anon]

@Angmarr

Out of the total number of browsers in use in Enterprises, 78% of those use IE.

Now, out of the total number of instances of IE, 60% of them are version 6 and 39% of them are IE 7/8.

Hope that helps.

[Angmarr]

@ tm_anon

thx mate, should've seen it!

[chrispix99]

I think most of the reason that IE is still number one in the enterprise is because it is so easy to keep up to date using group policy & WSUS to push out updates.

As far as IE 6, my guess is it is more 3rd party developers who have not certified yet with IE 7/8, and while the 3rd party applications will work fine with them, the businesses won't offer support unless its on IE 6. Coming from a Governement background, 3rd party developers can really drag their feet.

[Seaspray0]

let your WSUS to push the service packs and you'll get the IE 7. We only got one call when we did that (wondering why their internet settings were being saved again).

[jake3373]

Also, on slower school/business computers that are loaded up with programs that the business needs, IE6 is probably faster starting up than IE7 or IE8 and uses less resources. Also, most computers are on XP (Vista sucks for businesses) and IE6 comes with it. Also, if they don't have group policy / WSUS , it would take a very long time to update all the computers.

[ballmerisanape]

This just in: recent studies suggest spousal abuse rates are not positively correlated with divorce rates. For more information, please refer to "Stockholm Syndrome" references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome


"IT control trumps technology populism."..... that says it all....

[Seaspray0]

"IT control trumps technology populism." Yes, it does. I'll also bet those companies aren't willing to adopt a browser that can't be controlled by IT. But that's their problem, not mine or yours.

[dbargen]

Back in the days when my company blocked .exe downloads, the only way around and out of IE 6 was to bring in a flash drive with the installer ready to go.

I strongly suggest this for anyone who wants to move on and has admin control of their work machine.

[badmojo42]

And wants to lose their job. You don't own your computer when at work, and installing unauthorized software is exactly the thing that can get you fired. I had a friend who worked for an insurance company and they found somebody who upgraded the browser on their machine. Manager fired the person on the spot.

[jake3373]

Use your home computer for normal stuff, your work computer is for work. Also, upgrading might break custom programs that your business uses.

[sting7k]

Reason why DoD world wide computer network is so easy to crack for cyberspys, they still use IE6 because the vast majority of their online resources are so outdated that they can't use anything else.

IE6 crashes on me at least 2 times a day at work, our IT department admits they know how bad it is. To complete many things for DoD I have to have 5 instances of IE6 open at once because it can't do tabs.

[crazynexus]

Amen.. I usually have 7 windows of IE open just to get all my resources. What sad is everything at work runs fine on IE8 at my house when I have to access a few things from home. FF is out for those sites, as it says "this has been programmed for use with IE5.5 and later" when I try to use FF3 :P

[seven7dust]

the reason the internet cant move forward is because of IE6
I blame Microsoft for the predicament !
Which is why I support the EU on the Browser Front !
Hopefully the U.S and other countries wake up too

[B-Ri]

That's a silly comment. MS has moved on, it's called IE7 and IE8. The issue is with companies that are either too cheap or too lazy to make needed changes to support current versions of the browser. The EU's ideas on MS and their browser are idiotic at best. Force MS to unbundle IE from the OS? I usually use FF and I use Macs more than PCs but I think MS should be able to include whatever browser they want with their OS. Besides how would you get to FF to download it without a browser? IE6 did suck and why any company would continue to use it is beyond me but let's not bash MS for the fact that some people can't or won't upgrade their browser.

[jake3373]

Microsoft updates their browser, they've moved on (though not by much - IE is still one of the slowest browsers) - it is the company's fault that they don't upgrade. I know at my school they have to do it little by little - they just got .NET 2 working and half the computers have IE7 (most still have IE6). Some computers have Firefox, though.

[Seaspray0]

You can blame the coders for this predicament. Microsoft doesn't write the web pages of the internet. You're just all to happy to blame microsoft for everyone elses mistakes.

[pithenumber]

you just blame MS because its your easy way out

the problem is, some legacy stuff is for IE6 only and some companies are too lazy to go to IE7, IE8, or some other browser like FireFox

[tm_anon]

The problem is that IE6 and Internet Explorer in general is still using proprietary tech. If they'd used open standards in the first place, not only would businesses be able to upgrade browsers without a problem but they'd also be able to use Firefox, Opera, Safari or whatever other browser they choose.

That's not the businesses fault, it's Microsofts. Actually using IE in the first place is the fault of the business.

[DrtyDogg]

@tm-anon: that still falls back to the developers. IE does support many standards, but it also supports some proprietary technology. It is up to the developer to choose whatever technology works best for their uses.

[thenet411]

I have one 400+ node corporate client that still uses IE6 for two reasons: app compatibility and executive incompetence. App compatibility is still an issue with many older apps and most corporate customers are reluctant to upgrade to the newest version simply because the older version "works fine" according to the people with the purse strings. Unfortunately, those people fail to realize that "just fine" does not take security issues into account. In addition, many vendors move on to new versions of products and don't see fixing older products to work with newer browsers as their responsibility. "Oh you want to use IE7 with our product? You have to buy the latest version because we're not going to go back and recode for another browser and we want to make as much money off of you as we can. By the way, that upgrade will cost you 5 figures and will cause 5 days of downtime if you want to use the same hardware or will cost you another 5 figures to procure the hardware to run the new and old versions in parallel while the new one is installed." is what I hear most often on compatibility calls. I suppose there is a case to be made for moving on to the latest and greatest version of a product for both the vendor and the customer but rarely does the CFO see it as a reason to spend money unless there is some new functionality that another influential department wants to have.

IT staff are in a tough spot. People like network users and Larry Dignan love to point the finger at IT staff and say it's our short-sightedness and control issues that are the problem but it's really not. The executives that make the decisions on what to spend on IT and where are rarely technical skilled. Even if they USED to be technically skilled, as they move up in ranks they spend less and less time thinking technically and more and more time thinking corporate politics. What they fail to realize is that we have budgets that we have to stick to. We have to balance useability, security, support and training, network administration, and a whole host of things most users cannot comprehend because they see their corporate workstation as no different than their home computer where they feel they are well within their rights to install LimeWire if they want to. They are terribly inconvenienced if they try to install an application and their workstation shakes that proverbial finger at them and says "Ah ah ah!"

So if you want change in the corporate space, start listening to your IT staff. Take more than "works fine" into account when making a financial decision regarding application purchases.

[servermaker]

You should spend a little time being held accountable by shareholders or investors for corporate revenue and income growth. Might give you a little more perspective.

[thenet411]

Oh right, its all about growth. No one is happy with flat revenue anymore. There is no such thing as enough. It always has to grow. Often that growth comes not as a result of a better product or more market share but comes from 0% growth in those areas and cuts in other areas such as manpower or operating costs. Yeah, growth is such a good thing.

[rapier1]

Flat revenue is actually decreasing revenue in real terms because of the effects of inflation. As such a business must grow their revenues by at least the rate of inflation in order to be bringing in the same amount of purchasing power. A different question is if a business always has to be expanding.

[imaginenews]

The truth of the matter is many large corporations have stringent security polices. These policies guide what can and can not be installed on a work system. It may take years to get new browsers set as the standard. And guess what by that time firefox, safari, chrome have already put out 5 new versions.

It's not a choice it's the way larger businesses work

[vanillacokehead]

I work for a company that is mired for now with W2K Pro and IE6 (and in the throes of a glacial upgrade to Vista and IE7 during the next 13 months). And the folks in our company's communications department browbeat the people who designed our corporate intranet portal to make said portal act like a porn site and open EVERY SINGLE LINK, internal or external, in a new window. You can easily have five or six windows open to look for one piece of information. Tabs would make it much easier to manage this onslaught of new windows every time I look for company information. Sometimes I wonder if IT policies are primarily for the benefit of IT people rather than end users. Annoys the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of me...

[Arrgster]

We would use Firefox but our financial software requires IE so there is no choice. Which goes back to MS purposely not using standards and bad web development.

[drno7]

can't you use the IETab extension for that?

[catch23]

Did MS write your financial software? Did MS force you or your company to buy it?
I'd say it isn't MS's fault then. You (and your company) chose 'to purposely not use standards' and chose 'bad web development'

[darussian12]

FF has an addon called IE tabbing...will elim need to use IE for any "ie only" sites since it lets FF render it with the IE engine. since started using IE tabbing in FF i havent had to use IE for anything even work sites i access through VPN that are IE only

[jake3373]

IE Tab doesn't work for everything - that is just for normal browsing.

[Kimsh]

Go back and check whether those standard were released when IE6 came out. Standards move with glacial slowness, and the good thing is that there are some many to choose from. There are standards wars just as there ar ebrowser wars. Often whether you are standard compliant is purely a matter of who controls the timing of the stands release, and who picks which standard. It is not uncommon for a stands release to be delayed several years from its release date, often with no clear end in sight. Of course if you want Microsoft to put standards in front of innovation... :-)

[perontopsp]

Hey, umm Forrester Research. Before you draw out your table figures, be sure to have accurate data. Because last time I checked, Google Chrome has been out of beta for a while. Nice Job!

[deregtx]

So opera has no market share? How can a big news site take this research seriously?

Big Fail..

[rapier1]

In the enterprise market in the US? No it really doesn't. What market share it has is within the margin of error.

[d4rkn1ght]

Opera doesn't get love in the USA like it does on the rest of the world.

http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2009/04/30/accelerating-desktop-growth

[Seaspray0]

@deregtx. Not really. Not enough of one to be taken seriously. Maybe you and commander spock can form a support group.

[myles taylor]

Ignorance is bliss, right? I guess I don't really need to say anything else. The companies that force their employees to use IE 6 are idiots. Period. Nuff said.

[Seaspray0]

Rule#1 for business... don't break the apps that make the company money. And yes, companies still run apps that are 20+ years old.

[pithenumber]

some companies have legacy stuff that they need to use IE6 for

[twitter_1963]

70% of the worlds transactions still run on a mainframe through some 25+ year code. It's all right if your a 250 seat organization with 2 IT staff but if IE is being used for 50% of your 500+ applications then the cost of testing, migrating that, let alone all the other stuff people have to deal with, who cares.

If IE6 works, then like our customers who still use DOS and green screens and fat clients and client server apps, who cares. Get over it.

[sargess25]

you guys always wondered why Windows suckers keep using IE? here's a funny lil' charts explains the reasons: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_v9TXq34dMGk/SdbS7pSFe0I/AAAAAAAABMw/sUxtMfWp6p4/s1600-h/358.jpg

[B1gC72]

we use IE7 at my job. while i'm glad we at least have tabbed browsing now, it's still pretty fricking slow. i typically end up doing all my downtime surfing on my phone as i don't have to worry about getting in trouble for looking at video game blogs or news sites.

[ivorycruncher]

I find the "no automatic Windows NT LAN Manager authentication" stat interesting for Firefox. While not "automatic", it can easily be configured to do so. One needs only to open the advanced configuration settings in the browser and whitelist the specific sites that such authentication is allowed for. Actually, I might almost consider this an improvement in security. The best way to maintain a secure environment is the only allow users the access they absolutely have to have to do their job. There shouldn't be a huge amount of URLs that any given organization needs to allow NTLM authentication for, so maintaining a whitelist should be too much of a problem.

However, I do agree that the biggest thing Firefox is still lacking is a group policy type of management for enterprises, which would allow for easy deployment and lockdown of features like extension installations. If they add that feature, I think we will see significant gains in Firefox's market share in the enterprise realm. One major advantage not really listed in this article is the fact that it's cross-platform, so if an enterprise has any combination of Windows, Mac, and Linux, it should make standardization of a managed web browser a very easy goal to achieve. Granted, there's the lack of support with Microsoft apps like Sharepoint, but if a company is already using Mac or Linux workstations, then that probably means they're not running mission-critical apps that require IE, so deploying Firefox shouldn't be a big deal.

[Angmarr]

damn IE6 .. im actually slightly shocked!

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=3

nevertheless Firefox is still holding strong!

[itconsult10]

I refuse to push out IE7 and will continue to do so for IE8 for most businesses I support. IE7 and IE8 break the proprietary applications that are needed. For internet browsing, they use Firefox (3.0.10), but still require IE6. If I could remove IE6, I would, but too many things want it, and do not work on newer version.

On a personal note, I cannot stand the look/feel of IE7/IE8 vs. Firefox. No customization, poor security (Yes, MS still hasn't learned and has lost the trust of me, and those I work with) I have to rely on 3rd party software and content filtering devices to protect computers when using IE, but not Firefox.

[ccwsoftware]

RE your personal note about having to rely on 3rd party software for filtering and security: I understand your point and agree with you in principle, particularly with IE6. However, Firefox add-ons like Ad Block Plus and NoScript (which I would not use FF without), are 3rd party add-ons. Mozilla is not providing them, they are not integrated right out of the box. Yes, Firefox is inherently more secure than IEx, but not by the margin that those add-ons provide. Perhaps we should hope for those improved margins with IE8 and Chrome, with their promised add-on extensibility, even if 3rd parties are involved.

[gerrrg]

Note to Forrester Research, that data is old. Chrome was the only browser that wasn't taken down at pwn2own, and is out of beta.

[rapier1]

Chrome is out of beta but it is still early in the product cycle.

[walker2151]

Good I wasn't the only one who noticed that it said Chromes security was unproven. I know where I work they tell us to use IE6, I've tested opening the websites we use in Chrome and they all seem to work fine. I think it's funny that we are told that we can't change from IE6 because of security reasons...how is a old old version of IE going to be more secure than any other NEW browser...specially when it's IE we're talking about. I've also witnessed the school system in Illinois requiring administrators to use Netscape to open certain reports because it wont open in anything else!!!