Microsoft has begun a campaign to actively urge users of its 8-year-old Internet Explorer 6 browser to upgrade.
After launching IE 8 in March, Micosoft has concurred with critics that IE 6 is outdated. Many people have dropped the older browser, but the remaining users are often the tough cases--those who don't have a choice because of corporate computing policy or who aren't tech-savvy enough to realize there's a reason to move on.
This eBay 'Web slice'--basically a live bookmark in Internet Explorer 8--is part of Microsoft's effort to get people to upgrade from IE 6.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)It's this latter population Microsoft is targeting with a campaign that runs through June 2010 that touts its own IE 8 as a better alternative. The campaign's first visible elements are a video aimed at online holiday shoppers and a Web slice to promote daily deals at eBay. Web slices are basically live bookmarks that can show miniature Web pages in the browser.
"What we're doing with the outreach is help users understand how to protect themselves against social engineering threats that exist and to help people understand how Internet Explorer 8 puts people in control of their own privacy online," said Ryan Servatius, senior product manager for Internet Explorer. Security was one of the big problems with IE 6, and Microsoft now boasts that security features in IE 8 block 2 million malware sites a day.
According to Net Applications' statistics, Internet Explorer 6 is still the most widely used browser, with 23.3 percent share of usage in October, followed by IE 7 at 18.2 percent and IE 8 at 18.1 percent. The newer browsers are gaining on IE 6, but so are rivals including Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google's Chrome.
Web developers often gripe about having to support IE 6, which doesn't support many modern features for more sophisticated Web sites and even applications. Microsoft acknowledges that it's holding back development of the Internet, too.
"The best thing a user can do to advance the Web is to help move people off IE 6," Servatius said.
Of course, many will upgrade to IE 8 by buying Windows 7. IE 6 was the browser that shipped with Windows XP, which remains entrenched, but there are signs Windows 7 is a more compelling successor than Windows Vista. That could help the corporate customers move away from IE 6, Servatius said.
"As enterprises migrate from whatever operating system they're using today to Windows 7, that's going to help deprecate IE 6," he said. "What we're doing is working both with consumers worldwide and IT professionals to help them understand what the benefits of a modern browser are."
LOS ANGELES--Although Microsoft intends to talk a bit about its plans for the future of Internet Explorer this week, the company won't offer preview code of its next browser, CNET has learned.
The software maker is also not planning to announce a move to the WebKit engine, as some had speculated.
Ray Ozzie, speaking Tuesday at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)In his opening keynote at the Professional Developers Conference on Tuesday, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie pledged that Microsoft will make Internet Explorer the absolute best Windows browser, but did not offer further details.
Microsoft is expected to talk more about its browser plans as part of Wednesday's keynote speech. During that talk, he is expected to talk about some--but not all--of its "focus areas" for the next browser version, a Microsoft representative told CNET.
The latest version of IE 8 was released in March and is also built into Windows 7. Despite the new release, though, Microsoft faces intense competition from Firefox as well as from Google and Apple.
In addition, Microsoft has struggled to get Internet Explorer users to move past IE 6.
Artists put the finishing touches on a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge constructed from soup cans. The June stunt was aimed at drawing awareness to Microsoft's Browser for the Better campaign, in which the software maker is donating to a food bank for each download of Internet Explorer 8.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft is extending a promotion that is designed to spur downloads of Internet Explorer 8 with the promise of donating food to the hungry.
The "Browser for the Better" effort kicked off in June. Under the plan, Microsoft was donating $1.15 in food for each download completed through the program's Web site, up to a maximum of $1 million.
The program was slated to end early this month. However, Microsoft never took the site down and announced formally last week that it is extending the promotion through the end of September.
Microsoft declined to say how many downloads the promotion has received, but the site's Web site reflects the updated deadline and still says that Microsoft will donate a maximum of $1 million.
Besides extending the deadline, the software maker is making one other change to the program--doubling the donation per download (to $2.30) for those who are moving from IE 6. Microsoft has said it would like to persuade more users to move off IE 6, but must nonetheless support those who choose to remain with the years-old browser.
According to Net Applications, IE 6 has 27 percent of the global browser market, as compared with 23 percent for IE 7 and more than 12 percent for IE 8. Various versions of Firefox account for 22 percent of the market, while Apple's Safari holds 4 percent market share.
The Browser for the Better push is just one of many ways that Microsoft is promoting IE 8, including a promotion with Nickleback as well as the boring-but-effective methods of pushing it out through Microsoft's automatic updating mechanisms.
Firefox launched the latest update to its browser, Firefox 3.5, in June.
It's been roughly eight years since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 6, but in many ways the company is still very much tied to the aging product.
Although Microsoft has released two major versions of Internet Explorer in the past couple of years, for many, the face of Internet Explorer is still IE 6 in all its tabless glory.
In large part, that's because many of Internet Explorer's users are the ones who tend not to change the browser that comes with their operating system--either because that's the type of consumer they are, or because they are working on a work machine in which they are not able to upgrade to a later version of IE or switch to another browser.
Amy Barzdukas, the general manager for Internet Explorer, said in an interview this week that Microsoft's perception is "being built by a browser that was fine technology eight years ago or a decade ago."
But that's frustrating, particularly since Microsoft has invested a fair amount of effort in the last couple of years trying to rebuild IE after letting it languish for several years. Microsoft added things like tabbed browsing and a phishing filter back with Internet Explorer 7, which debuted in October 2006, and earlier this year launched Internet Explorer 8, with anti-malware features as well as a private browsing option and improved standards support.
Even with that work, though, IE 6 remains not only the most widely thought of version of Internet Explorer, but also the most widely used version of the browser, at least by a narrow margin. According to Net Applications, IE 6 accounts for 27 percent of the browser market, compared to 23 percent for IE 7. Microsoft's new IE 8 has more than 12 percent of the market, while Firefox 3.0--the most widely used version of that product--has 16 percent (See chart below).
(Credit:
Net Applications)
Overall, Microsoft has been losing ground for several years to Firefox and other browsers. After reaching near ubiquity in the post-Netscape era, IE's global market share is now less than 70 percent. However, Barzdukas is hopeful that the trend is starting to shift with the release of IE 8.
"To the extent that IE was losing share over the winter, any rate of loss has substantially slowed since we came out with IE 8, and in some geographies IE overall has actually gained significant share," Barzdukas said.
One of the biggest things that could help Microsoft, Barzdukas said, is if more people understood that there were better browser options available from Microsoft. She has taken part of that task upon herself, making a pest of herself when she is at friends' houses for dinner--checking to see what version of the browser they are using.
A growing chorus of Internet users have asked Microsoft why, if it really wants people to move to IE 7 or IE 8, it doesn't just end support for IE 6. After all, there have been plenty of calls for the death of IE 6, particularly from Web developers, who are weary of the work required to make their sites work in multiple versions of Internet Explorer, as well as Safari, Firefox, and other browsers.
... Read moreIn a reversal on Friday, Microsoft said it is now open to allowing users in Europe to select competing browsers in Windows 7.
Essentially, Microsoft is offering to put into Windows a way for consumers to easily install a rival to Internet Explorer. PC makers, as they can today, could still install a rival browser and could also disable Internet Explorer, if they choose.
"Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a 'ballot screen' from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.
As first reported by CNET News earlier this month, Microsoft had hoped to comply with Europe's objections to the inclusion of a browser in Windows simply by removing the browser entirely from Windows 7. However, the European Union indicated that such a move might not satisfy its concerns.
"Under the proposal, Windows 7 would include Internet Explorer, but the proposal recognizes the principle that consumers should be given a free and effective choice of Web browser, and sets out a means--the ballot screen--by which Microsoft believes that can be achieved," the commission said in a statement. "In addition, (computer makers) would be able to install competing Web browsers, set those as default and disable Internet Explorer should they so wish. The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness in terms of ensuring genuine consumer choice."
For now--and until the EU accepts Microsoft's proposal--the software maker said it will continue to ship only the browserless "E" version in Europe.
Opera votes for the ballot
Hakon Wium Lie, who as CEO of Opera Software has been outspoken about the IE antitrust issue, was delighted with the proposal.
"It's a happy day for us," Lie said. "We certainly think the ballot is good news and think it will give users a genuine choice."
What's not yet clear is what browsers will appear on the ballot list. Naturally, Lie is concerned about that matter.
"The rules for getting onto the ballot will be something the EU will watch closely," Lie said. It wouldn't be a good idea "to limit it to only one or two, but exactly how many is a good question."
Mozilla, which oversees development of the open-source Firefox browser, was more cautious.
"We're interested in seeing the specifics of the proposal that Microsoft is making and until that point it's hard to have a definitive reaction," said Chief Executive John Lilly in a statement. "It is, of course, a good development that Microsoft will make changes to allow users to choose their own default Web browser, as today's browser mediates so much of our online experience."
Mozilla also had questions about criteria to be selected for the ballot, what terms Microsoft might impose to be part of it, and whether Microsoft will update versions of Windows already running with the ballot.
User headaches
The planned browserless version would create a number of headaches for users, including forcing them to try to download a competing browser without having Internet Explorer to do so, as well as making it more difficult to upgrade to Windows 7 than it would otherwise be. For example, moving from Vista to Windows 7 "E" would require a new installation of the operating system, while users elsewhere can just upgrade their existing Windows installation.
"While the Commission solicits public comment and considers this proposal, we are committed to ensuring that we are in full compliance with European law and our obligations under the 2007 Court of First Instance ruling," Smith said. "PCs manufacturers building machines for the European market will continue to be required to ship 'E' versions of Windows 7 until such time that the Commission fully reviews our proposals and determines whether they satisfy our obligations under European law.
Microsoft is also committing to "a public undertaking designed to promote interoperability between third party products and a number of Microsoft products, including Windows, Windows Server, Office, Exchange, and SharePoint."
The software maker faces a separate complaint over Office.
"Like the Internet Explorer proposal, the interoperability measures we are offering involve significant change by Microsoft," Smith said. "They build on the Interoperability Principles announced by Microsoft in February 2008, which were also based on extensive discussions with the Commission, and they include new steps including enforceable warranty commitments."
Microsoft has had "preliminary talks" with European Union officials with the hopes of settling several regulatory probes, according to a Bloomberg report.
According to the report, Microsoft is aiming to settle the matters before EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes steps down at the end of the year. One issue is the EU's well-publicized concern over the bundling of Internet Explorer into Windows, while the other pertains to Office software, Bloomberg said.
The EU earlier this year issued a preliminary finding that the inclusion of a browser in the operating system violated European antitrust law and has been exploring a variety of potential remedies, including forcing Microsoft to distribute rival browsers with its operating system.
Last month, CNET News reported that Microsoft was planning to ship Windows 7 in Europe only in versions that had the browser feature removed, aiming to sidestep regulatory action. However, both the EU and rivals issued concern over that approach.
As for the Office inquiry, Microsoft has said it was opened in January 2008 and resulted from complaints filed by a trade association of Microsoft's competitors.
An EU spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report of settlement talks and a Microsoft representative declined to comment. Both Microsoft and an EU spokesman declined to comment in the Bloomberg report.
Many people think that the browser is starting to replace the operating system as the center of the personal computer.
Naturally, the view that Windows is on a path to irrelevance is not one generally espoused by Microsoft. That said, at least some inside Redmond's walls argue that the Web browser needs to start acting more like an operating system.
Helen Wang
(Credit: Microsoft)"Some of today's browser policies are not very safe," says Microsoft researcher Helen Wang.
Wang, who has been at Microsoft since getting her doctorate from University of California at Berkeley in 2001, argues that the Web browser should act as more than just a file clerk that rubber-stamps each request that comes its way. Rather, it should act more like a traffic cop, keeping things moving smoothly and ensuring that the computer's resources are fairly allocated.
In short, Wang says, the browser needs to act more like Windows does--making sure that different Web applications are protected from one another--even those running within the same site. So Wang and her team came up with a prototype, called Gazelle, that does just that.
Microsoft first outlined Gazelle earlier this year, but has only recently started to detail its thinking. Wang plans to present a paper on Gazelle at the Usenix security conference next month, and last week Microsoft posted an article on its Web site explaining more about Gazelle.
Wang isn't trying to suggest Windows is going away. Indeed, she says, Gazelle depends on Windows, acting merely as the middleman for Web pages seeking to access a computer's resources.
"We're really trying to leverage the decades of operating system experience and apply that in the Web and browser setting," Wang said.
Microsoft is also trying to be clear that Gazelle is not the immediate replacement for Internet Explorer, which has been losing share to rivals, including Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari. The company has yet to commit to commercializing Gazelle in any way, meaning it remains just one of scores of projects incubating inside the company's research labs.
Many outside Redmond, though, see the browser finally starting to take on the preeminence that many had assumed it might back in the early days of Netscape. Google's decision to offer Chrome, some think, was more about having an engine for running its Web applications than it was offering an alternative means for serving up traditional Web pages.
Modern browsers, Wang said, have taken a step in the right direction by isolating different browser tabs so that if one tab crashes, the whole browser doesn't get taken with it. Wang said that Chrome and Microsoft's IE 8 take steps toward increasing the reliability of Web browsing, but she argues far more drastic steps are needed.
"I think Gazelle marks a significant departure from all previous browsers, including Chrome and IE 8," Wang said.
For now, Gazelle is very much a prototype. It borrows much of its actual rendering technology from Internet Explorer itself. And although it can display 19 of Alexa's top 20 Web sites, there are still plenty of things it can't do. It also runs more slowly than Internet Explorer, particularly when opening new Web sites.
But Wang said it offers Microsoft--and the industry--a road map for how the Browser should evolve.
"I think this is the right way to go and I think this can be practical," Wang said. "It will also take a lot of work."
Update at 8:50 a.m. PDT: The video has now disappeared from the ad agency's site as well.
Earlier this week, we were all rather intrigued by the appearance of a Microsoft ad, in which a wife borrows her husband's laptop and suffers a technicolor nightmare when she espies a site that he has been, um, enjoying.
By Wednesday night, however, Microsoft had second thoughts about the pulling power of puke.
The ad has been pulled from the IE8videos channel on YouTube. It's also has been removed from the BrowsefortheBetter.com site, which is part of the ad campaign. The vomit ad's slot has been replaced by a tag that says "coming soon."
This could have meant that a new ad is coming soon, or that the upchuck was uploaded too soon.
The truth is that Microsoft wasn't 100 percent happy with vom-com.
"We make a point of listening to our customers," a Microsoft representative said in an e-mail Thursday morning. "We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humor that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign. While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it."
Although many CNET commenters on Wednesday thought that the ad was funny, some criticized the piece as condoning surfing for porn (shame, shame, shame), as well as the generally less than perfect taste associated with yellow stuff exploding from a nice-looking lady's mouth.
However, Bradley and Montgomery, the agency responsible for the whole campaign--which features Superman actor Dean Cain--still proudly displayed the ad on its own site as of early Thursday morning.
And so it should. The ad has already created exactly the aftereffect for which the agency likely hoped.
But, as so rarely happens, I spoke too soon. Here we are at 8:50 a.m. PDT Thursday, and the ad has now been removed even from the Bradley and Montgomery site.
Even though the wife in the ad might, one feels, stand by her man, it appears the agency has decided not to stand by its ad.
Internet Explorer 8 now comes with a Nickleback.
No, Microsoft isn't again offering cash to get people to download the browser. This time it has partnered with Live Nation and the band to offer a custom version of the browser.
(Credit:
Amazon.com)
The software maker is sponsoring Nickleback's 2009 tour as well as Live Nation's Bamboozle music festival. As part of the tie-up, users can download music-themed versions of the browser.
Those who download Internet Explorer 8 from a special Web site gain access to a new live version of Nickelback's hit single "Something in Your Mouth," as well as video of the band on tour. There is also a Bamboozle version of Internet Explorer 8 available at a separate Web site.
Microsoft routinely allows others to create and distribute custom versions of its browsers. Of course, the timing of this is rather interesting considering it comes the same day that Mozilla launched Firefox 3.5, the latest version of its Web browser.
There is also a start-up, Brand Thunder, that creates custom branded versions of Firefox.
Artists put the finishing touches on a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge constructed from soup cans. The stunt was aimed at drawing awareness to Microsoft's Browser for the Better campaign, in which the software maker is donating to a food bank for each download of Internet Explorer 8.
(Credit: Microsoft)Although Microsoft is pulling Internet Explorer 8 out of Windows 7 in Europe, the software maker is also busy in the U.S. trying to get folks to download its latest browser.
CNET News Poll
One piece of the effort is a charity push in which Microsoft will donate meals to a food bank for each person that downloads IE 8 via a special "Browser for the Better" Web site. Technically, the company is donating $1.15 per completed download, up to a maximum of $1 million.
Although Microsoft is also pushing out Internet Explorer 8 over Windows Update and including a version of it with Windows 7 (except in Europe), the company is trying to build awareness of the latest version and spur active usage.
The software maker has seen its browser share--which once topped 90 percent--continue to decline, with Mozilla's Firefox having gained considerable ground. The company also faces competition from Apple, Google and others in the browser arena.
As of last month, Internet Explorer's global market share stood at 65.5 percent, according to Net Applications, compared with 22.5 percent for Firefox, 8.4 percent for Safari, and 1.8 percent for Google's Chrome.
To draw attention to the food donation effort, the company staged events in San Francisco and New York this week. In San Francisco, the company had an artist build a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge out of soup cans. I checked it out and did a short video interview with Microsoft's Pete LaPage about the effort.
The company is also running a series of online ads trying to highlight some of the browser's features, such as its support for "accelerators" that aim to make it quicker to get to tasks like mapping and blogging.
So what do you think, is the promise of Microsoft donating money enough to make you download IE 8? And what about the ads, do they make you hungry for more or just lose your lunch?
