No Browser Innovation?

"People say there's no innovation in the browser space," said Mozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker, "but that's only if you're using IE..." from 7/16 Wired article.

While you can't forget the source, you also can't argue with the accuracy.

I've got to say I was pretty disappointed to hear Microsoft say that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 would be the last standalone version of IE they'd do before the release of the next version of Windows, Longhorn (expected in 2005). It was especially galling to hear the reason was that Microsoft felt there was point in improving IE before then:

"Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1," [Microsoft representative] Countryman said. "Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS. CNET

Funny, I can think of lots of improvements that Microsoft could make to IE without enhancing the underlying OS: true support for PNG, additional improvements and bug fixes to it's already good support of CSS, the ability to block pop-up ads, improved management of favorites, the zoom text feature found in almost every other browser (including IE 5 for the Mac -- which Microsoft also has abandoned), etc., etc.

I know there are lots of excellent alternatives, but the fact is that IE is the standard for probably 80-90% of the browsing public and will act as the lowest common denominator for web design standards into the forseeable future.