I would like to comment on Gary Share's interview recently published on BetaNews:

  • Gary Share says only security and feature requests coming from users drove the expansion of IE7 to WinXP. Gary Share certainly omits one particularly important detail : Microsoft killed Netscape and it killed it well. But a small group of completely crazy people, incredibly poor and unorganized compared to the giant Microsoft, stood up and made a new browser that has kicked the giant's but. Microsoft can certainly answer strongly, they have the power, the money and the brains for that. Not only they can do it, but they need to do it. They need to do it because otherwise, the whole world will see it is possible to challenge Microsoft products even when zillions of people use them, even when they come bundled with Windows ! If a kid like Blake Ross (no offense Blake... that's a true compliment actually) can make Microsoft sweat, others can too. And that's bad news Microsoft CANNOT leave unaddressed. Don't misunderstand me, I am not syaing that security and user feedback did NOT drive IE7. I am saying that Firefox on the desktop and Opera on mobile pose the same threat to MSFT Apache already posed a few years ago. Apache won, but Apache is server-side. Almost invisible for average people. Firefox is HIGHLY visible, its authors are out of control because a lot of them work for free anyway. That's certainly unacceptable, from Microsoft point of view.
  • Gary Share clearly said the MSIE Team will not be dismantled again after IE7. Other releases are coming. You learn only from past mistakes, right ?
  • ActiveX is not going away but alternative technologies are a possibility.
  • Gary Share says Firefox has a rough 10% market share and IE a rough 85/90%, but omits to say the  figure climbs to an amazing 35% in some european countries...
  • IE7 final release will be available in the second half of 2006. At that time, Firefox will hit 2.0 !!! I sincerely doubt IE7 can be better that FF2.0. Competition is good, as says Gary Share.
  • IE7 feature set reached completion with Beta 2 Preview.