Microsoft's IE slipping into Chrome release cycle?

Microsoft is holding firm to its Internet-Explorer release schedule rather than follow Mozilla or Google by stepping up the pace of deliveries - officially, at least. Senior director of IE business and marketing Ryan Gavin speaking to The Reg at the launch of the Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate (RC) this month dismissed …

[Lewis Mettler]

no longer part of the OS?

Microsoft claimed IE was part of the OS.

But, of course, the technology advances at a different pace. Development is on a different pace. And Microsoft just lied when it claimed that IE was part of the OS.

Fraud is lying to get your money.

Microsoft uses fraud whenever it can to fool customers and get their money.

IE is an application and it has always been an application. Microsoft just lies about it. I guess they are kind of stupid.

[Ammaross Danan]

Part of the OS

Actually, if you take a good look at Windows 98 (for which this "part of the OS" was stated), Internet Explorer is indeed part of the OS. "Windows Explorer" uses the same GUI as "Internet Explorer." I wouldn't be too surprised to hear the file/folder browsing was generated HTML code al la Konquerer-style. With that in mind, it's no wonder even their solution of "uninstalling" it meant only hiding the public face of it. You could very easily type http://www.google.com into the "location" bar and have google pull up in the "Windows Explorer." Nowaways, doing so will cause IE (or default browser) to pop up with your page request. Seems it's no longer hard-baked now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Grrrr

The whole version race thing is ridiculous.

How about all browser companies all call their next versions v10, then concentrate on getting the basics right and just offer new features as extensions?

[Snake Plissken]

Version abuse

Massive numbers of beta versions, never actually getting out of beta, Release Candidates, silent updating in the background, security patching...

Is there any such thing as a bloody final version these days? Or do companies - especially all the browser manufacturers - just use the entire internet as some kind of big, free, testing setup?

[Wibble]

Microsoft are always slow

The biggest problem with Microsoft browsers has always been their damnable intransigence to seldom update and fix bugs.

It's clear they're still slow in upgrading which doesn't bode well for the unfortunate web development community at always has to clear up their mess.

[Ammaross Danan]

Agreed.

Proprietary code always seems to move slow, and it's likely due to what Open Source was designed to overcome: many eyeballs in the code = more bugs found and fixed. Granted, the "lower quality" of their programming prowess was sometimes blamed on creating more bugs than closed source. But now that programming is being outsourced with everything else to people of wildly varying programming ability and experience, I'd dare say FOSS has moved up a notch in comparison. Open Source Internet Explorer. Let the fanbase make it better.