Friday, October 29, 2010

IE6 Addiction Throws Monkey Wrench Into Windows 7 Migration

Computerworld - Enterprises dependant to Microsoft's nine-year-old Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) browser are having a difficult time migrating to Windows 7, an researcher mentioned today.

Happy Birthday Windows 7: Inside 7 Big Enterprise Rollouts Slideshow: 11 Tools for Windows 7 Migrations

And nonetheless Microsoft has done it coherent it wants IE6 deceased and buried , the firm needs to help compromise a complaint it combined when it expelled the non-standard browser, then pulpy businesses to rise IE6-specific applications, mentioned Michael Silver of Gartner.

"Microsoft would rsther than put the non-standard browser technology at the back it," Silver mentioned in a not long ago published investigate report.

Easy for Microsoft to say; it doesn't have to attend to the IE6 fallout.

According to Gartner, IE6 compatibility problems will result in at least one-in-five organizations to take longer than approaching or outlay more than they budgeted for their Windows 7 emigration projects.

"Microsoft needs to try all avenues that could ease the transitions divided from IE6," Silver updated as he spelled out ways the firm could descend barriers to Windows 7 adoption, something clearly in its interest.

The ultimate census data from Web metrics firm Net Applications pegged IE6's use share at 15.6%, that means it's the world's third-most-used browser edition. Many of the holdouts are enterprises sealed in to IE6 since the blurb program or home-grown applications they use work usually in that browser.

Organizations running IE6 have told Gartner that 40% of their custom-built browser-dependent applications won't run on IE8, the chronicle finished with Windows 7. Therefore many companies face a difficult decision: Either outlay time and allowance to ascent those applications so that they work in newer browsers, or hang with Windows XP.

But Windows XP won't live forever. Microsoft will retire Windows XP from all encouragement in April 2014, forcing businesses to desert it or danger running an working network exposed to attack.

Fixing homemade applications so that they run in IE8 is the surest solution, but moreover the many expensive. And every proxy workaround has a downside, mentioned Silver.

The many earnest of the latter is to use focus virtualization collection to virtualize usually IE6 -- not, as in OS virtualization, an whole working network -- so that it may be run in Windows 7.

But Microsoft opposes IE virtualization since it says the routine violates chartering agreements. The position hasn't been tested in justice -- Microsoft hasn't sued vendors similar to VMware and Symantec that give focus virtualization collection -- but the doubt make companies jittery.

"It's mocking that Microsoft would resist methods that would help organizations speed up the pierce to Windows 7," mentioned Silver in his investigate note. "Microsoft contingency do more to help organizations with their IE6 problems that Microsoft helped cause."

Continue Reading

No comments:

Post a Comment