Why IE6 Still Matters And Why You Should Not Care

There is an interesting report circulating this morning, courtesy of Geek.com. Volkswagen requires its suppliers to use IE6 when using Volkswagen applications. More than 10 years after its release, IE6 is still deeply entrenched in some environments, but has become virtually meaningless everywhere else.

Microsoft has gone to great length to strangle IE6, which has been more resistant to updates than any other browser so far. Released in August of 2001, IE6 shipped as the default browser with Windows XP in a time when Microsoft dominated the browser market with a 90%+ share. As Windows XP successfully penetrated consumer and business markets in the 2002 and 2003, the majority of business environments standardized Intranet and operational applications on IE6 and effectively locked in the software until the next major revisions of their environment.

The recommendation posted by Volkswagen reflects that scenario and is a sure sign that core applications inside Volkswagen are standardized on IE6 and are only guaranteed to run with this browser version. Volkswagen is more than likely to update its applications, but due to the significant investment that will be necessary throughout its enterprise, and due to the risks that such an change will bring, this will only happen when the advantages will heavily outweigh the disadvantages. Volkswagen isn’t the only company that still relies on IE6. For example, in the automotive world, GM has also deployed IE6 enterprise wide across multiple continents and a source tells us that, while the company has undergone a massive IT restructuring over the past 4 years, IE6 is still the browser of choice.

In terms of market share, NetApplications’ estimates IE6 share at 9%. This number indicates that, based on an Internet population of about 2.1 billion users (IWW), that about 190 million people worldwide still use IE6. Net Applications also says that more than half of all IE6 users are in China (54%), which is known to be widely standardized on IE6 in industrial and financial applications. If those numbers are somewhat correct, there are just 89 million IE6 users outside the borders of China. The numbers suggest that 3.3% of the world’s IE6 users are in the U.S. – about 6.3 million, based on IWW and NetApplications estimates. If we take industrial application use into account, it’s fairly safe to assume that IE6 has almost disappeared in general consumer applications in the U.S. For example, on the ConceivablyTech website, IE6 has a share of 0.08%.

If we look at the U.S. alone, and the IWW estimate of 245 million Internet users here, it is time for web developers to stop worrying about IE6 for their platform and interface designs. For the non-enterprise user, IE6 has become irrelevant, while IE6 has become a specific application that is mostly required to access very specific applications.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 24