Microsoft remains clueless about fixing IE

Amazing. Article after blog after newsgroup message on why an increasing spike in the population graph is switching from Internet Explorer to Firefox or some other Web wanderer. All easily summarized like so (picture me shouting at the great Northwest): Because with Firefox we don’t need to worry about some nameless virgin’s virus experiment eating our hard disks like a pile of wet sushi. We just want to click on an icon and get a Web browser, not a menagerie of problems, exploits, downloadable patches, and reboots. For systems administrators, we can add user support calls at the end as well.

Microsoft responds by announcing it’s thinking of releasing an update to IE before the arrival of Longhorn. But spokesfolks for Redmond say that although they will be delivering new features, they won’t be delivering tabbed browsing. I’m just staring at the text with a how-can-you-miss-the-point-so-badly expression on my face. So instead of taking a piece of complex, bug-and-exploit-ridden code and stabilizing that product, we’re going to add even more complexity to it, and rush the job to boot. I swear it has to be some kind of tradition up there.

IE’s problems obviously don’t stem from a lack of new features. They stem from a huge installed base of Web applications that depend on this client for stability and are being sold short day in and day out. IE as a client interface has real potential, as long as you’re not too sticky on that proprietary standards thing. As long as that doesn’t bother you, it’s easy to see that Microsoft has done an excellent job tying its development tools and the IE platform for fast and robust feature creation.

And to quote a Microsoft mantra, the company eats its own dog food in this regard, too. Take Exchange 2003 OWA (Outlook Web Access): Not only is the Outlook client interface surprisingly fast and powerful, it’s entirely customizable. Not only can you modify specific icons, you can even create themes complete with your own corporate logo and custom backgrounds, banners, and other goodies. There’s even an editable CSS you can use for color tweaking. This is really cool stuff.

No, it’s not an ultralightweight task, but all it really requires are some GIF image files of your own and a test environment in which to play around before publishing to production. If color tweaking is on the menu, you’ll probably need a chef familiar with CSS, although there are instructions for managing this on your own available off TechNet. Imagine the hero you could be to your marketing or HR department by creating different themes for employees or partners. Wow. Score for Microsoft, right?

Yes, but only hesitatingly so because all this coolness is hinged on the tight integration between Microsoft products, especially IE. And no matter how attractive your OWA skins might be, they’re still not going to offset a user’s anger if IE winds up eating his or her data or publishing his or her personal information to all of Bosnia because of some as-yet-undiscovered security hole.

So folks are drawing back from IE. Other e-mail server platforms also serve up Web mailboxes. These may not be as customizable as OWA, but at least they work on Web clients besides IE. No matter how many nifty bells and whistles the folks in Redmond tack onto IE, this trend will continue because it’s not about cool features. It’s about straight, reliable, not-risking-your-data Web access. If the Microsoft folks are reading: Give me that in IE, and you can keep tabbed browsing with my blessing.