Microsoft’s Browser Wars, 2011 Version

I came across this comparison chart today that reminded me of the early days of the browser wars between Microsoft and everyone else.  If you don’t follow such things, Microsoft has a long and sordid history of being unwilling to comply with standards that the rest of the world readily adopts.

Internet Explorer (IE) is universally accepted as the most difficult browser to work with when developing web applications, regardless of which version is currently out.  They were able to get away with this in the past because they owned the market.  Today that is simply not true, and yet you would never know it.

When I was at SXSW earlier this year, I stopped by the Microsoft booth and got a demo of IE9.  During the demo, the booth person repeatedly told me that IE9 was moving quickly toward the Webkit standards that the rest of the browser world uses.  Microsoft was going to place nice in the sandbox with the other kids.  I was stoked.

Alas, here we are late in 2011 and Internet Explorer continues to suck outright in terms of compliance with HTML/CSS standards.  Internet Explorer’s market share has dropped precipitously since 2003-2004, when it commanded over 75% market share.  Today it is less than 23%.  It has dropped almost 4% this year alone.  That is staggering if you think about it.  With all of the Windows machines out there, Internet Explorer has but 22% of the market.

Internet Explorer is dying.  It can’t happen soon enough.

Question: Why is it that Microsoft still continues to pull these bone-headed moves?