Microsoft employee Rory Blyth:
I think IE is horribly behind the times. When every other browser on the planet that’s worth a damn supports tabbed browsing, it’s just crappy that I still have to have different copies of IE open to have multiple sites open at once.
As of right now, my favorite browser on the planet is Apple’s Safari.
A bewildered ex-Mac IE developer Jorg Brown recalls a conversation with a Microsoft superior:
Over the whole sad journey, the single most surprising thing I ever discovered was from a small conversation that went:
Me: “Look, if it makes sense to devote dozens of people to WinIE, then surely it makes sense to devote half a dozen to MacIE!”
Higher-up: (confused look) “There aren’t dozens of people on WinIE. WinIE had some great people on it! We need those great people on products that make money!”
Me: “Then why on earth did we pursue IE in the first place? Just so that the DOJ would sue us?”
Higher-up: (confused look)
Some day I hope to get a proper answer on our motivation to do WinIE and MacIE in the first place. It seems to be that we were scared of not having control of the HTML standard. And indeed, now that Firefox is gaining traction, Microsoft has added more people to WinIE again.
Epilogue: All of this made it a lot more easy for me to quit and go work at Google.
