[teletech]

What sense does it make to release a product that doesn't measure up?

[Panerai]

Doesn't that describe a few MS products :-)

[HangThemHigh]

"What sense does it make to release a product that doesn't measure up?"

IMO they don't want to measure up. More people use Internet Explorer than any (all?) other browsers. Why should M$ spend their time playing catch up when they are already #1? They would rather set standards than follow them. It's their way of thumbing their noses at the competition.

[JSteff]

"What sense does it make to release a product that doesn't measure up?"

Do you know what the test's is? Really?

It is if the standards for browser functions and display meet the guidelines set down buy the W3C. MS was wrong for not upgrading IE but than again they also are overwhelmingly used by the majority of the surfers on the web.

Considering who has the majority of the users, I would think that the other browsers meet the standards of IE... anything else is just gravy.

Oh and Firefox is not perfect either. It does not display many sites properly either. The tabs are cool though.

Nothing to see here, move along.

[Eddie01]

MS is betting their GUI is superior to the point where swithing costs are sufficiently high to allow them to release an inferior product knowing the market will stick with them.

Honestly, I don't know how long this can go on. Open source applications are more difficult (but not impossible to) gain competitive advantage over in-house designs due to the lack of critical mass developer/users (word processor users don't typically have deep programming knowledge or a need to improve on whats out there).

Crazy Prediction: MicroSoft will lose the infrastructure game, but continue to win in the integrated suited of productivity related applications areana.