October 16, 2006; 04:38 AM
According to Microsoft’s IEBlog, IE7 will be released this month via
Automatic Update. Companies are being advised to take a risk assessment
of their organisation to decide if they should globally deploy the
browser.
Deri Jones, CEO of webtesters of SciVisum comments:
“IE7 may at first appear better and more standards compliant than
IE6, but as it comes with almost as many bugs, overall it leaves one
disappointed! IE7 fails even to catch up to where other browsers like
Firefox have been for some years with their CSS and HTML support.
Indeed developers will be left frustrated that Important elements of
CSS 2.1 are still not handled.”
”As it looks like Microsoft have decided to push the upgrade to IE7
out through windows update within weeks of IE7’s release, this means
that zillions of users are going to be upgraded without them really
being aware, and the volume of calls to corporate help desks and
home-user ISPs is likely to be a nightmare. Plus the pressure will
really be on web developers to sort things out 'right now'.”
“Microsoft’s failure to implement a mode in IE7 that makes it
display a page as if it was IE6 (and which can be triggered by code in
the web page) could be short sighted."
This option would give web developers the ability to decide
themselves when they're ready for IE7. If a site needs a bit of tidy up
to fall in line with IE7, then it just may not be convenient for a
business to address that immediately, rather than incorporate it into
existing work schedules.”
“Indeed, as others have commented, it is arrogant of Microsoft to
expect the internet to change and fall in line with their software and
not the other way around - an error in judgment that could come back to
haunt them! Particularly as news of IE7’s release could pre-empt many
'slow adopters' finally making the move to Firefox. Indeed as users
can't run both IE6 and IE7 on the same PC, if you hit a site that fails
using IE7 it could well prove to be the only option.”
About SciVisum:
SciVisum is a UK based web site testing specialist, helping clients
to reduce lost sales online by identifying where and when user
experience suffers.
The services provide vital data not available by web-analytics or other web monitoring:
* when invisible errors impact users but are invisible to the in-house teams
* when wrong or missing page content forces users to abandon their purchase journeys
* what % of marketing campaign traffic is lost due to
under-capacity in one or more vital steps such as 'add to basket' or
'checkout' pages.
The company's services measure the performance and functionality of
client's business-critical on-line systems. Using the multi-page User
Journeys approach to measurement, SciVisum's metrics provide real time
KPIs and act as a common language between the business and marketing
teams who work daily with journey concepts of Add-to-Basket, Checkout,
Register, pay-online, login and etc; and the web technical teams who
need precise input as to which step of which journey is
under-performing, when and how, in order for them to most effectively
apply technical resources to close the problem gaps.