Why Can't Businesses Upgrade their Browsers from IE6/IE7?

Question

I have read lots these past few weeks on IE6, seeing if it was really that bad to make it look right. I have just learned HTML and CSS this past year so I've been spoiled to start with basically CSS3 and HTML5, and I can do some really cool stuff super fast. I'm no IE6 master and I don't have years of experience with IE. So I thought it'd take a little time to figure out all the hacks to IE6/7 discovered and just implement them.

But it's way harder than that (or maybe just way too much work). I'd have to either completely rebuild my design using "Internet Explorer 'Principles'", or cut out a lot of the neat things I could do using more recent technologies.

For a million and one other reasons, everyone who builds things online seems to think IE should die.

My question is, why can't businesses upgrade their browsers?

When I work with businesses, they almost always resist the first time I ask, but 5 seconds later I'll show them what it looks like on my computer and talk about how great the latest stuff is (how much more secure later browser are, all the famous IE security cases, how much smoother and faster they new browsers are, how the IE team has basically missed the boat entirely, how much smoother business processes run, etc.), and they get excited! And within a few seconds they're up and running with Chrome or something.

So can businesses not upgrade for some reasons? What are the reasons a business cannot upgrade?

• The main reason I think of is because they have an old version of windows. But a) wasn't there a legal case against this? and b) somebody must have figured out how to install Chrome or Firefox on ancient versions of Windows by now.
• Another reason is ROI. Basically that it costs too much to change. But is there any basis for that, because it actually seems that if you were using a cell phone from 2001 vs. an iPhone, you could do a lot more much quicker and easier, so you could focus your time on more "valuable" tasks. Same with browsers, it seems even more valuable to upgrade because it will save you time and hassle and virus software and restarting your computer and IT guys in the end.
• Last reason is market share. But if everyone was convinced of the value of time saved, and problems/issues/viruses avoided, and the ROI of user experience, then ultimately the market share would decrease like we're seeing.

Update

Side question: Do these companies with IE6/7 generally have javascript enabled? That way I could at least hack something quick together.

Update

I whipped together a page to help non computer savvy people make the change... hopefully :). Check it out at InternetEnabled.org. Just started, has a long way to go. Code is on Github.

Answer 1

Usually because they have some old web application that doesn't work with newer versions of IE, and that is critical for their work.

They could use a different brand of browser, but usually they don't have the computer skills to use multiple browsers. When the new browser would register itself as default, they could never find their way back to IE6 so that their application works.

So, what they would need is either an upgrade to their old application, or some computer education. Both cost money, and it's usually much more than what they see that they can gain from it. They could upgrade, but they won't beacuse it costs too much.

Answer 2

There can be multiple reasons.

Is it worth doing, would an executive ask. There is a cost related to upgrading browsers on a thousand of computers and maintaining the new configuration, so what's the benefit, in terms of ROI?

Then, having all computers same helps greatly, support-wise. So from support point of view it's often better to have all computers at the same level (even if that level is not so high) than to have each computer on its individual level.

Or, businesses might not even care of IE issues because the five web sites they use daily look fine.

And then, Microsoft has a great marketing department whose main purpose is to make CEOs believe they shouldn't even try the fancy other technologies.

Answer 3

• I can think of legacy "IE-only" business apps which have been created with little or no thought given to web standards as one prime reason why businesses can be unsure to upgrade.

• given that historically v1.0 versions don't do as well as v3.5 so businesses wait till a more mature version is released before moving.

• Sometimes, they have audit requirements where the business cannot just deploy a new piece of software (beta version or something that has been in production very recently)

• The total cost of upgrading the WHOLE network to use the new version. Even if the software is free, the business will incur costs in installing that software on all workstations which could run into 1000's of machine

Just a few thoughts that come to mind.

HTH

Answer 4

IT would have to support the new browsers as well. As a developer I have to use IE as the primary browser for quality check because it is just such a huge market share of internet users.

Answer 5

From a tech support perspective the amount of people who actually need to browse the web as part of their job is very low, and they tend to run dual browsers. Your average user only needs to access various in-house websites for travel expenses, company news, e-learning or what have you. And these websites have usually been built for IE6 years ago.

There is very little value to be gained by rolling out a new browser on thousands of machines for people who don't have any business surfing at work.

Answer 6

If the employees of such businesses shouldn't be surfing at work anyway, what reason is there for web developers to support those old browsers anyway? Why not use the excuse of corporately forbidden surfing to focus on newer browsers?

Answer 7

Because it's expensive to upgrade.

Answer 8

Most of the reasons given in other responses are valid, however I'm wondering whether you've asked the question you really wanted to. The backward compatibility question will always be there. The real questions are:

• whether you should implement it, and how much more you should charge your clients for it, if you do - which is a business decision
• if you decide not to support older browsers and have an easier time in development, what will it cost you in market share, user access, adoption etc... - which is again a business decision

Once the costs of maintaining backward compatibility become too high, it will all happen by itself.

Answer 9

I suggest writing two front ends for your application - a wizzy modern one and a basic HTML one that will work on IE6 - see gmail for example, which has a "basic html" option.

If you are developing software for a business then make it clear in your contract that this is what you will do and make sure you charge them the development cost for both interfaces.

Supporting different platforms does not mean the UI has to be the same on each platform, or even have the same functionality.

Answer 10

First, IE7 is an upgrade over IE6. And IE8 is an upgrade over IE7. So there is definitely an upgrade path that doesn't include Firefox or Chrome.

If you're selling your clients on the latest "Gee wiz it sure looks shiny" browser features, are you really doing anything to meet their business needs? Do they really need Firefox plugins? Do they really need Google to track their every move online?

In the business world, there is much more to consider than "the neat things I could do using more recent technologies". If you really want to offer effective solutions to your clients, you'll take these issues in to account.

Answer 11

Our product is developed in classic and asp.net but was always targetted for ie6 and above. In anything else it's terribly non w3c compliant and buggy. I am thinking of putting a browser sniffer on the login which prevents login unless ff, ie8/9, chrome etc is the current browser. Don't waste your time using ie hacks and trying to make it work in all browsers. If the users complain about downloading a new browser that is something their IT dept can sort out. This is no different from dowloading silverlight for wpf apps or a new desktop app. Downloading firefox is trivial.

Answer 12

As a worker in a SaaS company with 60% IE6 users, I have investigated this question in some depth. IE6 is expensive to test and support, so it's an issue with economic consequences.

My employer serves (non-physician) hospital workers, so I can recount some specifics in that industry. I suspect other institutional settings have similar issues.

1. Hospital computer workstations are set up very rigidly using Windows Group Policy Manager and other lockdown techniques. End users can't change much of anything.

2. There are existing hospital IT programs, in particular a medical-imaging module of a product called Centricity from GE, that rely critically on particular ActiveX Controls that don't work on IE7+, and certainly don't work on Firefox, Opera, and the like. Do hospital workers really need to look at X-ray images? Well, yes.

3. Hospital IT people perceive that they have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by upgrading working systems.

4. Nobody formally asks them to upgrade because the assumption is they'll refuse.

My little company is now saying in our sales literature, "For best results, use IE7 or better." This is helping a little bit; some hospital IT workers are saying, "finally, a reason to risk the upgrade." Our IE6 percentage is dropping three percent a month. At this rate it will be gone by January 2012.

Answer 13

The US Federal Government just recently updated to IE7. As a WebApp programmer this was a god send as the differences are vast.

The primary reason for the government to take so long (IE8 is out now), is that they have to put it through extreme measures of penetration testing, validation, etc.. Then they have to roll it out to a huge client base.

In most large companies the MIS dept just doesn't have time to upgrade to the latest release of every application, they figure "If it ain't broke. Don't fix it."