“Microsoft announced that they will no longer develop new versions of Internet Explorer”
Edit: Spartan is now ‘Edge’. An intelligent decision in my opinion, now they can use the old ‘E’ icon that users are familiar with.
The death of the Internet Explorer has the internet in an uproar today. On the 20th (don’t quote me on that, I never saw the press release, but hundreds of sites are claiming they did) Microsoft announced that they will no longer develop new versions of Internet Explorer. Who killed it? Well, for those of you who have only had a smart phone in your lifetime, there’s a chance you’ve never heard of Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer was the dominant leader in the usage share of web browsers for many years, post 1990’s. Netscape Navigator held the title for most of the 90’s, but Internet mogul: AOL or “America Online” bought Netscape some time around the turn of the century, and drove it straight into a wall, leaving the tracks clear for Internet Explorer to begin it’s browser conquest. How does a browser go from commanding a whopping 96% of the usage share down to as low as 11.5% in just a decade? And why are they ending support with numbers around 15-20% this year?
- 1994 – Netscape founded.
- 1995 – Internet Explorer released with Windows 95*
- 1999 – Netscape acquired by AOL.
- 2002 to 2004 – Microsoft’s new giant, Internet Explorer commands upwards of ninety percent of the browser usage share.
- 2007 – AOL canceled development of Netscape Navigator, leaving it unsupported as of 1 March 2008
- 2014 – Microsoft discusses unveiling a new browser, “Spartan”, along with Windows 10
- 2015 – Internet Explorer calls it quits, IE 11 being the last supported version.
- This Summer – Microsoft is to launch Windows 10 with it’s new browser: Spartan
So it’s not necessarily the case that Microsoft is throwing in the towel in the browser wars, but rather throwing a new warrior into the war. And who won wars better than Spartans? We’ll soon see if Microsoft does the name any justice.
Download the last version of IE:
Are you a die hard IE fan for whatever messed up reason? The download page for Internet Explorer 11 is still up (for now) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/download-ie so this is your chance to get what is supposedly the last version.
