Sunday, June 01, 2003

IE is Dead (the Web too?)

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of June 2 "When asked in a recent online chat about the next version of IE, Brian Countryman, an IE Program Manager, said, "As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation." The reason? "Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1," he said. "Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS." Sadly, this perspective is skewed, and suggests Microsoft believes IE is somehow at the "zenith" of the Web browser heap."

Sad, although not at all unexpected (I think there was a better link but that's the best I could find). It's not about a zenith of anything, it's about rights management (Palladium). It also indicates just how deep the changes will be for rights management (not just a plugin for IE, an extra window in Word or integration into Window's Media Player). Also mentioned on Slashdot, Tim Bray, Ryan Lowe's Blog and bradchoate.com.

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