IE the biggest mistake Microsoft has ever made?

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IE the biggest mistake Microsoft has ever made?

By Adam Myers ⋅ April 25, 2006 ⋅

Dvorak thinks “it can now be safely said, in hindsight, that Microsoft’s entry into the browser business and its subsequent linking of the browser into the Windows operating system looks to be the worst decision—and perhaps the biggest, most costly gaffe—the company ever made. I call it the Great Microsoft Blunder.”

Internet Explorer probably isn’t the biggest blunder for Microsoft. In fact, I’d argue it was extremely shrewd since IE was originally for-pay and then released for free to “compete” with Netscape. It’s no secret how that competition faired – IE removed a competitor from their market, their underlining strategy all along. If for no reason other than that, the profit vs. loss analysis does not hold weight here.

The biggest problem with IE is how intricately it is linked into the OS, which is why security exploits in IE are a huge nightmare for Microsoft. That being said, I think Dvorak is at least partially correct. If they used any other browser, they’d toss out at least half their security problems. They could point the finger, and shake their heads, and talk about how secure their system is and how, if they built a browser, it would be completely secure and oh-so-functional. Instead they look awful, and their browser is a technological fossil, even with IE7 on the horizon.

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