Internet Explorer fumbles.. he's down!

According to Roz Ho, general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit [via Bob, via PC Pro, via MacUser], development of Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac has ceased. "OK," I say. "So what?"

IE5 for the Mac was released some time in early 2000, I believe March or April. Generally speaking, the browser has not changed since its initial release date. Don't get me wrong; it's a good browser, and it was an important win for the Mac community. Despite that, it has flaws, and the developers have not kept up with existing technologies. Microsoft gave up on this product two years ago. It just took a long time for them to admit it.

Ho claims that Safari pushed them out of the market, as Apple is able to provide more integration with the system than the Microsoft developers. I think this is a complete load of crap. Fix the stupid margin bugs, add tabbed browsing, and your browser is almost top-notch. Too many companies use the "Apple made a competing product" excuse as an easy out. I say, if you've got a good product, it's probably going to succeed. Either that, or Apple will buy the rights to it. (Then you definitely won't have to compete.)

So, really, what does this annoucement mean? Not much. We still have a choice of browsers, however limited. And it's not like Internet Explorer is going away any time soon. Hell, many of the people I support at RIT use Netscape Communicator 4.7. Such is life.