Auto Install of IE 7 Delayed In Japan

filenavigator writes "Microsoft has delayed the automatic install of IE 7 in Japan. There's an an interesting response in one of the MSDN blogs. IT pros are saying that they have done this because business users asked it to be delayed. It seems to me many business users here in North America wanted it to be delayed as well, but were forced to scramble and deploy IE 7 blocking software. This looks like more proof that the IE 7 automatic push was more for marketing reasons, than security. If it were a security issue, than why wait on the Japanese push?" Does anyone know the 'technical' reason that the autoinstall was delayed?

It's not a coincidence..

[aero2600-5]

From what I understand, IE7 is being removed from corporate systems just as quickly as it's being installed. IE7 is breaking applications left and right. Macromedia's Dreamweaver won't operate properly if IE7 is installed on the same computer. There are other applications as well. Payroll software, punch clock software, etc.. It's apparently breaking all sorts of things.

At my friend's company, there was a corporate wide memo stating that no one was to install IE7 except the "new media" departments, because they do all the website work and need to be able to test how IE7 slaughters their HTML and CSS. Even the new media departments were told to install "At your own risk".

I don't think it's too far fetched to believe that the Japanese market caught word of how IE7 is breaking all sorts of other software and asked Microsoft not to push it. I think the response in the IE blog is bullshit. The Japanese don't want IE7. Not if it's going to break everything.

Aero

Re:This didn't happen overnight!

[noctrl]

yes, it did not :)

We got the message Thursday from two of our application providers;
"IE7 will not work, please wait for fix from us!"

Things like this use quite a bit of time to go thru the system.

Are You Kidding Me

[wycats]

For crying out loud, this is the sort of thing that really bugs me. I was recently asked, publicly, what my #1 web development annoyance is. I answered IE6. So I don't have any love for Microsoft. I also own a Mac Pro and a Macbook. So I've spent good money on Apple. And I like my machines. But there's a seriously painful double standard here:

• Every incremental feature update of OSX costs $130. Incremental feature updates to Windows are free (by incremental, I mean ones where the underlying OS is the same, but features are added. Think OSX and Windows XP)
• Firefox has an automatic push feature that automatically downloads and offers to install the new version of FF. So does IE.
• You can only install OSX on Apple hardware. Any licensing restrictions on the use of Windows causes a serious outcry here.
• Steve Jobs has openly said his iPod marketing strategy involves building iPods in such a way that forces users to buy new ones every year. Imagine if Microsoft said something similar about Windows (never mind that there *is* a new version of OSX that you have to buy every year or so if you want the newest features)
• Firefox recently got into a licensing dispute with a Linux vendor who wanted to use its name but not its logo. Firefox legally blocked them (relatively minor, but still)
• The bottom line is that lately, MS has been behaving fairly well. I think that's clear. They've executed legally binding agreements not to sue based on certain patents it holds, implemented very impressive CSS improvements to IE, and brought the Firefox crew over to Vista headquarters to help them make the transition to Vista. We should step back for just a bit and let Microsoft get IE7 and Vista out. Quite frankly, the day IE7 kills IE6, I will be a very happy person. And so will many, many web developers. The "push" is actually a pretty good thing, in the end. Until the day that I start seeing people attacking Apple for Jobs' "reality distortion field" and practices that sometimes closely mirror the actions of Microsoft, I'll look dubiously at posts like this. Frankly, I'm getting tired of them.

Re:It's not a coincidence..

[Shados]

Its kind of funny. Usualy we hear about how its the developer's fault that they are writting "non-standard compliant" code, and that they deserve what they get if it breaks in Firefox, or whatever... Now though, since code break because the code isn't standard compliant enough (while IE7 isn't very good still, it does a much better job rendering standard CSS than it does randering IE6 targetted crap) in a microsoft browser, its Microsoft thats evil :)

A lot of the software that are breaking which are not related to web, however, do so because of their use of the MSHTML rendering engine... In a -lot- of cases, just changing the doctype tend to make things -relatively- OK. For the rest...well, IE7 has been in beta and RC for how long now? I know that IT stuff doesn't happen overnight, but Microsoft gave as much warning as they possibly could. If stuff broke (and I'm guilty of that, some web apps I wrote did break, and I didn't take time to test it in IE7), its the developer's own damn fault. They had like a year or something. Jesus...

Re:Are You Kidding Me

[mr_matticus]

If it's an incremental update (your first contention), then your fourth contention is in direct opposition--incremental updates don't proffer "new features." With the exception of Windows SP2, when was the last "free" update to Windows known to provide new features and critical technologies? SP1? SP1a? W2K SP3? None of these are equivalent to new iterations of OS X.

Compare Apple's update cycle to Microsoft's, prior to their "we're done with Windows!" release of XP. You had Windows 95B, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP all released (for pay) in a roughly four year period (early 1997 to October 2001). Since 2002, there have been 3 updates to OS X for pay. I don't know about you, but the jump from 10.2 to 10.4 seems much more worthwhile than the jump from Windows 98 to ME (ME's atrocious quality and reliability notwithstanding).

Apple provides free updates to their OS, too--several of them, much more rapidly than Microsoft offers service packs, but more slowly than MS security fixes. Will XP SP3 introduce new applications and important features useful for developers or users? I wouldn't count on it.