Why I Like Windows

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—IEBlog Editor, 20 August 2012

The great thing about Windows is all the software that runs on it. Every day, there’s new software released for Windows. Today, with Firefox’s release, is no different.

As someone who has worked on many big software projects over the last few years, I’m happy for the developers who worked on it. Signing off on your work and letting the rest of the world use it feels good. As someone who works on Windows, I think more software for Windows is a good thing. As someone who believes that customers making choices in a marketplace is a good thing, I’m happy to see more options out there. 

I’ve listened to different customers, and partners, and pundits talk about their browser choice. I’ve seen a healthy spectrum of articles and commentary on the topic. I wanted to offer a few comments on the subject.

First, IE, like Windows, is a platform. That means that by choosing IE, customers choose a rich, healthy ecosystem of additional offerings. You can see a collection of these at Windows Marketplace. I know people whose first activity, after starting IE, is clicking on the MSN toolbar or the Google toolbar. Friends of mine at Microsoft use browsers “powered by IE” like Maxthon and NetCaptor for tabbed browsing and other great features. Every day I get mail about different IE add-ons; they keep on surprising me. Of course, there are some great ActiveX controls out there as well (who doesn’t use Flash or the Adobe PDF reader?). 

Second, IE, like Windows and the rest of Microsoft, is committed to Trustworthy Computing. You’ll see that commitment with the next beta of Longhorn. XPSP2 demonstrated that commitment. The work in Windows Server 2003 around “hardening” showed that commitment. Our work on security updates for a browser released in 1999 shows that commitment. I’ve talked with customers running Win2K and IE5.01 who have solid business reasons for not changing OS or browser. They understand that they are running an “old” platform. They want to be as secure as possible in that choice. Microsoft is there for them, and will be for a long time. 

Last, the IE team, like the Windows team it belongs to, lives to innovate. I’d love to say more about what we’re working on right now on this front. I can’t. I will defer to Mr. Scoble’s comments.

-Dean

Updated: corrected capitalization of Firefox.