molly.com
Wednesday 5 December 2007
Conversation with Bill Gates about IE8 and Microsoft Transparency
Yesterday I was once again honored to have the opportunity to speak directly with Bill Gates at Mix n’ Mash about issues pertaining to standards and the upcoming IE8. Concerned about a lack of forthcoming information to the designer and developer community regarding IE8 and Web standards, I asked Bill if he could, in the spirit of a more open Microsoft, find out what was going on. Here is the transcript of our conversation (with some repairs where the transcriptionist couldn’t hear), along with a photo of the fantastic Mix n’ Mash crew.
(From ltr: Jonathan Snook, Julie Lerman, Kelly Goto, Rob Howard, Bill Gates, Molly Holzschlag, Kip Kniskern, Jesse Warden, Keith Peters and Erik Natzke.)
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: So, I have a little bit of an infrastructure question, as related to MIX and the open conversation and transparency. A few years ago, MIX was a big information and conversation about the opening of ideas, it was about when in the specific we talked about the browser, IE 7, a lot of interest in that, a lot of talking about it. So, for the last year or so, I’ve been working, I’ve been a consultant here with the IE and tools teams to try and help get standards implementation to be strong, and we see some really great advances.
But very recently there seems to be a shift in infrastructure, and I don’t really know exactly what happened, but what I understand, my understanding is that IE sits on the Web platform rather than in the — excuse me, on the platform, on the Windows platform rather than the Web, and something seems to have changed where there is no messaging now for the last six months to a year going out on the IE team. They seem to have lost the transparency that they had been able to get some momentum going on in the IE 7 phase, in the year and a half since MIX06.
So, I’m very concerned about this, because being the person here that’s supposed to be the liaison between designers and developers for the Web and the browser conversation, this conversation seems to have been pretty much shut down, and I’m very concerned as to why that is, and how we can correct it.
BILL GATES: I’ll have to ask Dean what the hell is going on. I mean, we’re not — there’s not like some deep secret about what we’re doing with IE.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: But they’re not letting people talk about it. I do realize that there is a new engine, there is some other information, and this information is not being made public — we are being asked not to talk about it. So, I’m concerned about that.
BILL GATES: I’ll ask Dean what’s going on. I mean, is IE 8 represented at MIX? I assume it is.
JENNIFER RITZINGER: Yes.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: To what extent?
JENNIFER RITZINGER: To be determined
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: So, at MIX08 then?
JENNIFER RITZINGER: There will be disclosure by MIX08.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: By MIX08, then.
JENNIFER RITZINGER: Yes.
BILL GATES: There’s a paradox about disclosure, which is when you’re far away from doing something you’re super open; when you’re very close to doing something you’re open; when you’re making your cut list of what you can do and not do, then particularly because — well —
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: it sets expectations and that causes trouble?
BILL GATES: Yeah, and so I don’t know where Dean is in terms of if he’s willing to commit what’s in IE 8 and what’s not in IE 8. In terms of standards support, he’ll see that it’s a glass half full. It adds a bunch of new stuff we didn’t have before, it doesn’t add everything that everybody wants us to do.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: I mean, really IE 7 made some great advances, so . . .
BILL GATES: No, and believe me, Dean gets this stuff.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: Oh, Dean totally gets it, and that’s why I’m concerned, because they have always been so forward facing.
BILL GATES: I’ll look into it.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: Yeah, do. It would mean a lot to the design and development communities.
BILL GATES: I mean, I will look into it.
BILL GATES: We do sometimes have MIX — a lot of how the MIX agenda gets set is the tools guys, and we need to make sure the Win — yeah, we have two organizations. I mean, they’re totally complementary, but we should make sure the Windows messages come through in MIX. I know last year the Windows group felt like their messages could have — we could have done an even better job on the Windows related messages, that that didn’t happen. So, we’ll double check that.
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: Thank you.
Today, on the IE blog, the now official name of “IE8” has been announced. Before, or by March of this year at MIX, there will be some news I’m sure will be of interest to anyone working with Internet Explorer.
Filed under: general
Posted by: Molly | 18:11 | Comments (88)
Comments (88)
I’m sure your exchange probably prompted the post on the IE blog 😉 Some news is better than no news. Keep fighting the good fight, Molly!
Great conversation. I remember talking to you about IE back at a Boagworld meet-up, either this year or last? Nice to know that they are adding stuff that wasn’t in there before.
Just look forward to seeing it for myself once IE8 is released. Although i’ll still have to change code to be compatible with IE6 + 7. Things can only get better, right?
Interesting.
Is there any chance that IE 8 will appeal to the non-techy folks? Enough to get them to upgrade to it and leave behind IE 5 + 6 at the very least?
That would be a real blessing, imo.
Thanks again, Ambassador Molly. 😉
It would be disappointing if IE8 wasn’t released in ’08 … I’d be happy with a release a year, from now on. Every 9-12 months was a fine plan (just gotta stick to it).
Interesting conversation, indeed. Thanks to you, Molly, for asking the tough questions directly to the man.
I’d kind of echo Bridget’s question. Is there any reason we should *care* about IE8, given the rather poor adoption rate thus far for IE7? New browser that support more goods are terrific — if people use them. IE7’s been out for quite a little while now, and I still don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel for being able to stop worrying so much about IE6 (and older) users.In order for adoption to be high, there needs to be some compelling end-user features, or features that appeal to the IT guys that have to install this new behemoth on the computer of all 5000 employees in their company. Frankly, at this point, I think MS’s time would be better spent figuring out how to get people to use their latest browser, rather than adding more support for newer standards to one that won’t be out for nine months or so.
I guess I’m less interested in when IE8 is going to come out than I am in when I’m practically going to be able to *use* some of the new stuff that’s supported, even in IE7.
The silence after 7 release seemed typical to me. I mean, after IE6 we didn’t hear anything…. I’m actually surprised that we might see IE8 next year — I would have put it 2 years out.
After reading this and the related IEBlog, I’m actually worried. Something smells fishy.
Please tell me they aren’t going to foster all rendering off to Word like they did with Outlook….
Very interesting, the bit about the “new enginge”. How new, one wonders? A complete remake or just an incrementally improved engine? 🙂
There is distinct perception that MS would release every 9-12 months. If this can be maintained with very distinct improvements (like following a few more of the “recommendations”) then this will cement Microsoft’s standing. At present for a lot of the development/design community Microsoft is like a failing child than has just got their first B. We are all waiting to see if this was a fluke. IE8 is MS critical third album (music wise).
I also question if Bill has any relevancy anymore.
I too would like to see a improved adoption rate. At present IE 6 is still the primary development browser percentage wise. There needs to be a push (beyond vista) to get IE 7 into the corporate SOEs.
You still didn’t tell us why Snook got Bill “annoyed” 🙂
Safe to assume we’re going to see Silverlight/Expression Engine built into IE8, along with requisite marketing push?
Funny to think of MS going in both directions at once with IE8: better standards support and renewed proprietary efforts.
Maybe the lesson here is that after the IE6 experience, developers aren’t keen to simply trust that silence means work is going on. MS cannot afford to lapse into radio silence if it actually wants to maintain the momentum which briefly appeared around IE7.
If they’re doing their cut list, much better to say so than say nothing… and why not tell us about the cut list? It would be a chance to explain *why* we don’t get certain things. It’s not like we’re talking about proprietary information here – we’re talking about whether a product will meet existing standards.
As for what I want from IE8… I want it to herald an aggressive push to get people to upgrade from IE6. Is there any indication why IE7 adoption has been so lacklustre? Does MS feel it has a solution for that problem? Here we are talking about IE8 and yet we’re still stuck screaming at IE6 bugs every other day because it still has majority share (depending on source of course).
IE8 itself… I want it to finally support CSS properly, or at least in a manner consistent with other browsers. I think the web industry has run out of ways to say that!
I’d also like to see it plug a few gaps in its XHTML support, specifically thinking of the OBJECT element here which just won’t play nicely.
In short… in IE8, we’re still waiting for the basics. CSS, XHTML… we want the IE to finally catch up with Opera, Firefox and Safari.
Thanks to Molly and Snook, and all the others who took the time to travel and further the conversation.
For me, fixing absolute positioning and hasLayout, adding generated content, and reaching sufficient adoption that IE6 can be dropped, would be awesome.
Looking forward to IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition, er, IE8!
Thanks for pushing the case Molly! IE really must catch-up to where all the other browsers have been for years. It has been a pain and a time and huge dollar sink hole building to standards then compensating for MS IE (it is much quicker building to standards first them compensate for IE than build to IE then the rest of the browsers). I am hearing a lot of developer not working about IE 6 and on Intranets encouraging standards compliant browsers to streamline the development process.
I do understand backward compatability is a huge undertaking. And I have read Chris (Wilson)’s writings on his approach and concerns with all of that. I also understand that doing something like inheriting (and then of course forking) Webkit hasn’t been looked at as a realistic approach to “fixing” IE.
biggest concerns for the community are:
* full css3 support
* correct DOM implementation (can we lose * html for ie8? please?)
* better ECMAScript support (at least get on par with ff3/webkit)
what else?
maybe “in browser” check for updates functionality, not dependant on windows update?
more frequent builds / releases that are browser only and not service pack dependant?
@Nater kane:
The “* html” hack has already been removed. IE7 doesn’t support it, so it only applies to IE6 and earlier.
Other than that, Ben said everything I was going to say. 🙂
I’m glad to hear that Mr. Gates is going to push the issue. I’m looking forward to IE8.
As far as features go, I would probably be different than most. I would be perfectly happy if there wasn’t much CSS3 support as long as there is consistency with other browsers.
If IE8 and Firefox rendered the same markup, the same way, I would be thrilled. Once the major browsers are all on the same page, it will be easier for them to cohesively move forward together.
The question I keep asking myself is why on Earth Microsoft does not include IE7 in XP SP3? Wouldn’t it be the excellent opportunity to improve its adoption rate, to make browsing the internet safer for millions, and to make thousands of web developers happy? I simply don’t get it. Now maybe the answer, I was looking for, is this: IE8 and SP3 will come out roughly at the same time or real close. Even then, in my opinion, IE7 in SP3 would be a much better choice than leaving people with IE6.
Would you please allow me to translate the transcript to Hungarian and publish it on my blog? I’ll link it back to you, of course.
@balbage : by all means, tell the world!
Yes, please, publish the transcript into Hungarian (my father’s blood),
I will do what I can to make sure it gets seen.
you’re awesome, and I want to come back to Hungary sometime. I felt very much at home there
xoxoxoMolly
hmm – new engine – and nobody talks about it? maybe something big is going on 🙂
they switch to webkit – yeah !!1!
just in my dreams 🙁
I am a Chinese student majoring in Information management and Information System.I want to know that when do you think we could use the IE8 ??
Thank you.
Molly, that conversation does NOT reassure me. Everything after IE4 has drifted further and further away from standard. IE7 fixed what for developers? Something like 6 bugs, a handful of quirks, and added a couple new features like transparent PNG and full CSS1. Oh boy! CSS1! Welcome to 1997!
When IE7 was announced and the beta was put out, I remember distinctly seeing you posting begging everyone to remain calm as we howled at how little MS had done with 6 *years* and their amazing piggy bank available. So now, we see you in front of Microsoft jabbing them in the face with a hard question that they HAD to know was coming, and they had precisely zero answers. None. About a product they KNEW they were announcing, knew the development community would be watching, and had watched said community flood them with questions and comments for a year that began to sound like a community-wide mantra in their repetition:
“WHERE IS FULL CSS? WHERE IS BETTER JAVASCRIPT SUPPORT? WHERE IS A DEBUGGER THAT DOESN’T SUCK?”
We said all of it for 6 years about IE6, we said it for a year about IE7, and now they aren’t prepared to answer those specific questions (which are ALL that matters to “DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS”) as they announce the next product.
I don’t smell fish. I smell an entire cow pasture full of bullshit on their part. Thank you for putting them up to such a rough question… their silence on the issue is more telling than any spin-filled announcement could ever be, and it tells me “It’s highly likely not a damn thing has changed”
I’m not looking forward to having to code for *4* different browsers now: all 3 versions of IE + standards. This is gonna suck.
“hmm – new engine – and nobody talks about it? maybe something big is going on 🙂
they switch to webkit – yeah !!1!”
More likely that they ported what used to be IE for the Mac back over to Windows. Before its ultimate demise being relegated to rendering web pages for a proprietary MSN for Mac web browser, it was quite a robust, highly-standards compliant browser. Of course it had its quirks and limitations too, but I think it’d be better than writing from scratch. An about face using a competing open source platform seems quite unlikely. MS already owns the IE for Mac codebase, it’s not being utilized. And at one time, it once shared the same codebase of its Windows counterpart.
Just an educated guess though… if I were them and needed a new engine, I might look to myself first.
great post molly 🙂
New engine? Uh oh. We’ve already got 4 to worry about.
> IE for the Mac… was quite a robust, highly-standards compliant browser
Ha! Compared to IE 5 for Windows, yeah. Compared to today’s browsers, it’d be a nightmare.
Sorry for yet another comment, but could people clarify what they mean by poor adoption of IE 7?
Microsoft says IE 7 is the most popular browser in the US and the UK:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/30/the-first-year-of-ie7.aspx
Although I won’t be happy until IE 7 has wiped IE 6 off the face of the web, they don’t seem to be doing too badly.
“Ha! Compared to IE 5 for Windows, yeah. Compared to today’s browsers, it’d be a nightmare.”
You do know that there was work done on the IE Mac platform after IE 5? IE6 for the Mac was in development, and in fact after Safari was released, even though IE6 for the Mac was scrapped, that browser did get released, but was only available with their MSN for Mac offering.
In any case, that browser was far superior to both Windows IE6 and IE67 in terms of CSS support. I don’t know about JS support, that’s a separate issue anyway.
Look it up, there used to be support charts that included the MSN for Mac browser. Most all of CSS 2, in addition to some CSS3. Almost all of CSS3’s selectors were implemented, for example.
Point being, MS does have another browser engine sitting around that’s probably a better choice for a new engine that starting over from scratch.
God help us all if they picked the “Word” engine, like they did for email.
I can appreciate Microsoft keeping their mouth shut. Every time they open it, they catch hell.
Decades ago, as a kid, on a ball court in a very hostile environment and the team enduring an entire game of abuse from the bleachers, at the end of that winning game, the coach looked up into those stands from the ball court and simply pointed to the scoreboard and did so without saying a single word. He didn’t have to speak one damned word .. none of us did.
Maybe Microsoft is using the same strategy. Of course that will turn on how IE8 will be viewed. If it is a dud and anyone recalls this specific post, which I doubt, I will have, again, looked like a god damned horse’s ass. Oh, well.
I anticipate a winner, however, and one that provides a significant consumer reason for upgrade.
And if it is a flop, so what.
Tasman was used after MSN for OS X, too: Office: Mac uses it to this day, though some things on the MacBU blog imply Office: Mac 2008 will use WebKit. It has at least one major issue though: it is far from quick.
They were hyping up Expression’s standards support when it came out, so it may well be based on that.
I’d also make the assumption that the current quirks and standards modes will continue to use Trident IV/V respectively (both need to be frozen where they are, as any changes will break millions of sites — many rely on undocumented bugs, or assumptions that IE will be broken forever).
P.S.: I’m awake now, Molly 🙂
So what is the indication that IE8 has a new engine? What do you know Molly? Hopefully it’s a engine which does not have hasLayout and puts all the bugs on my site to rest. It will become a novelty site.
I think it’s mix of unrealistic expectations (or at least wishful thinking) and comparing it to upgrade rates on other browsers. Firefox and Opera, in particular, have had considerably higher upgrade rates within the same period of time, with the vast majority of their users running the most recent major release.
Of course, the type of person likely to go out and install a web browser is more likely to go out and upgrade that browser as well. Then there are IT departments with conservative upgrade policies, intranet apps that require IE6, etc.
Back when IE7 was announced, the consensus among web design sites I followed seemed to be that it would take years to get rid of IE6. Reality seems to be bearing this out.
the new engine is webkit and Mr. Gates is going to look into it.
@Kelson:
On one hand, you’re totally right. It’s unrealistic to expect IE7 to replace IE6 in this amount of time we’ve given it. However, there are certainly things MS could be doing to improve the adoption rate (such as including IE7 with the latest service parks), but they’re not. I understand it will take time, but I also think it’s fair to expect Microsoft to push the issue as much as they can. It’s in everyone’s best interest (users, developers, Microsoft…).
@Jeff Croft:
Absolutely. Look at Firefox; in the past week I have gone from 2.0.0.9 to 2.0.0.11. All I’ve had to do is click “OK restart”. (Granted, these are point releases and not version releases, but MS could do *something*).
Don’t you bet that Dean got a nice email from Bill after that? 🙂
I’d simply love to answer your questions with greater details, but I do have an NDA and cannot ethically (or legally) cross that line.
I will say that what I’ve heard so far is to my liking.
In practical terms we are stuck developing for IE6 for a few more years.
I work in a corporate environment where the standard desktop box is Win2k/IE6. The current replacement cycle is now replacing them with XP/IE6, it will be at least another 12 to 18 months before everybody gets XP. The logic for IE6 is that it (and not IE7/FF etc) works with our internal systems like payroll, finance etc. These are not small systems developed inhouse, but big ticket items from the big guns like Oracle.
I am sure we are not the only corporate environment that is that way.
My concern about IE8 and a “new” rendering engine is that we will be developing for 4 browsers, IE6, IE7, IE8 and standards browsers. If we only have to develop for three browsers IE6, IE7 and standards browsers (including IE8) I will be happy.
If it is a new rendering engine how about using it for Outlook, Office and Windows Mobile as well.
What else would be nice: all of CSS2, as much of CSS3 as possible, though starting with the same ones as Webkit, FF and Opera support. Good developer tools, firebug is what you are aiming at. Incremental upgrades (adding more CSS3 support etc) every 12 months or so.
I have some significant concerns that Microsoft has abandoned the standards based web browser. There have been concerns over at the JavaScript standards group that Microsoft is foot-dragging on improvements to that language. There’s the lack of support for CSS3 in IE and there’s also no Canvas support. The IE rendering engine is really just too slow with large data sets – with over 1,000 rows in a table and things get real slow for hovering and clicking. And I haven’t mentioned all the quirks and just plain bugs.
The problem is this – Microsoft is really shooting themselves in the foot by not implementing to standards. They act like these technologies are just too hard for them to implement. There’s all this talk about compatibility and how hard it is to remain compatible and still innovate – so its easier to just not improve existing technology and instead create 100% new technology.. This seems like a smokescreen to me – best I can see IE doesn’t even comply with standards tests like ACID. So, what the heck are they moaning about. It’s like they have suddenly found religion or something. If computability is important then why not simply conform to the standards? Put it another way, if i woke up one day and IE acted just like Firefox, I would stand up and CHEER! By no means would I be upset. Microsoft is really barking up the wrong tree when they talk about compatibility. Instead they should talk standards compliance and help put together ACID type tests for each new standard, like the improvements to Javascript.
If they need to rewrite IE from scratch, then that is fine too. But the main thing is that they need to focus upon standards.
What really steams me is that Microsoft is working on proprietary NEW technology that addresses each of the areas that IE is deficient in – C# to address Javascript and Silverlight to address CSS3 and IE rendering issues.
The fact of the matter is this – most web developers have no interest in using proprietary technologies. Speaking for myself, I have been stabbed in the back more times that I can enumerate with proprietary technologies. So, I have no intention of adopting C# or Silverlight. This is especially the case given what they have done to developers with IE6. As a professional developer who makes my living by writing code that runs on IE, I feel betrayed by Microsoft. Why would I trust my livelihood to a proprietary technology that they could similarly abandon?
The thing about standards is this – they need to be conformed to. But they also need to be improved upon. Microsoft has shown little interest in either.
In addition to all the points previously made, regarding support for standards — in my company, we continue to await native SVG support in IE. (Not to mention SVG export from Office apps, *especially* Powerpoint!). It would be a huge step forward to have *standards-based* vector graphics (not VML) render natively in the browser, including the option to pan and zoom. It’s inefficient and aggravating to have to download a separate file to see a basic diagram or org chart. Flash doesn’t work for all. Here comes Silverlight — yet another proprietary diversion. I applaud your efforts Molly, and those of Chris Wilson, to focus Microsoft’s attention on support for standards in the browser. Compete elsewhere; not in the browser!
Molly, you did a fine job of interviewing Bill Gates. You are forever my hero. 😉
What a great interview.
I’m always excited about a new version of one of the main browsers, but I’m concerned about the up take of IE7. I still encounter so many people using IE6, IT professionals recommending IE6 over IE7. How long realistically after the release of IE8 will we be able to start writing apps for IE8 rather than a IE6/7/8 compatibility compromise? And is there anything Microsoft can do to expedite the migration?
I’m not bashing Microsoft, I think they generally do a bang up job. I would just like to feel the benefits of all these great advances.
It is already mentioned in the comments … I think the following will happen:
– No (or little) standards improvement
– Same quirks and bugs as in IE6/7 to support old intranet applications
– Focus on Silverlight
We’ll just have to wait and see… I hope it turns out the other way.
Holy smokes, everybody is raving how INTERESTING the conversation between MH and BG was. Am I the only one unable to grasp what the chit-chat was about?
Pray, enlighten me. Preferably in a lay language.
What exactly do you think you accomplished?
I must not be in on the joke either because I totally didn’t learn anything from this blog post and the conversation between Molly and Bill. Molly, maybe you can write up another post explaining it?
To everyone who didn’t get it. The telling and interesting part of Molly’s conversation with Bill concerns two things. One, there is a new engine in IE. Does it affect just quirks or standards mode or both? What engine did they pick? We don’t know. MS’s past commitment to backward compatibility makes me thing it affects only standards mode. But, plain as day is the information that there is a new engine in IE. Two, is that she asked Bill about the IE team’s openness and transparency to the development community, not the IE team’s commitment to improving standards.
Were commitment to standards a problem, and obviously Molly can’t tell us because of her NDA, I think we’d have seen a conversation about the IE team’s commitment to standards. Also interesting to me is how quiet various industry experts are on this topic, industry experts that talk to the IE team (Eric Meyer, et al). That there is a new engine and various industry experts aren’t chomping at the bit for news (because all of them have inside sources) makes me think they are going in the direction that we need them to go in, significantly improved standards support. I believe this doubly so since there is news of a new engine. A new engine means they couldn’t get Trident to evolve the way they needed it to evolve.
The only really screwed up thing that I can personally derive from this news is their deafening silence, which I’m sure will end soon.
Perhaps I’m too optimistic, but I can’t see all of these people being this quiet were something foul lurking on the horizon.
Nick Cowie Says:
“I work in a corporate environment where the standard desktop box is Win2k/IE6.”
Me, too. A big corporation, like, huge. Just grousing.
“The current replacement cycle is …”
…far as I can tell, never. :sigh:
If they would be really smart, they would have two engines in IE8: one doing the quirks mode and be fully IE6 compatible and one that does all the standards the right way. Thank the Lord I’m not a software engineer 😉
However, the poor adoption rate has got a lot to do with businesses. By far, most business have standardised their intranet and in-company applications in IE6. They are not going to upgrade and the IE6 clients represent a lot of the traffic on the WWW where the employees use that browser for internet purposes as well.
Currentle, I work for a company which cannot work out how to upgrade every workstation from XP SP1 to XP SP2, because they cannot get confirmation that some client software applications will run on SP2…
So IF finally business will upgrade from XP to Vista in 20something, they will all be on IE9 or IE10. In the mean time, we need to work around IE6 as best as we can, and hope that the people who adopted IE7 will adopt IE8 as well.
I’ve got some anecdotal evidence that bears that out. Early this week I noticed, for the first time, IE7 was ahead of IE6 in my website’s stats for December — or rather, for Saturday through Monday. Over the course of the week, the gap has steadily closed, and I expect that by the end of Friday, IE6 will again be slightly ahead.
With more IE6 hits on weekdays and more IE7 hits on weekends, that fits a home/business split.
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