Hey Mono: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

SAN FRANCISCO — Cue the dirge for Internet Explorer, Microsoft's much maligned browser.

Soon the brand will be (mostly) no more.

Microsoft has hinted that Internet Explorer brand was going to be scrapped. Now it's official.

Chris Capossela, Microsoft's head of marketing, made the announcement Monday at the Microsoft Convergence conference.

Microsoft is placing its bets on its new and speedier flagship browser codenamed Project Spartan.

Project Spartan will not be associated with the Internet Explorer brand, Capossela said. Microsoft is working on a new name and a new brand for Project Spartan, he said.

"We're now researching what the new brand or the new name for our browser should be in Windows 10," Capossela said, according to The Verge. "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing."

Not that Internet Explorer branding will vanish entirely. It will still exist in some versions of Windows 10, but Project Spartan will be the main way Windows 10 users roam the Internet.

"Microsoft is making compelling software right now, software as good as Google and Apple. But they still have a perception of lagging and they are trying to break that perception and that includes retiring brands," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

It's the end of an era for Internet Explorer which launched nearly two decades ago.

Over the years, the browser became the bane of some office workers' daily lives. A series of security flaws also damaged the brand.

Microsoft has struggled to revive the Internet Explorer brand as competition heated up from Mozilla's Firefox, Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers.

Dean Hachamovitch, the manager of the Internet Explorer team, left the company in December.

"At one point Internet Explorer commanded north of 80% share of the browser market, but with the explosion in mobility, that market share has dwindled to 30%," said S&P Capital analyst Angelo Zino. "The platform isn't cutting it on mobile devices and that's where the focus is today."

Project Spartan will run on phones, tablets and personal computers but was expressly made for the mobile experience, Microsoft says. It will also have the personal voice assistant Cortana built into it.

"Project Spartan is Microsoft's next generation browser, built just for Windows 10," Microsoft said in an emailed statement. "We will continue to make Internet Explorer available with Windows 10 for enterprises and other customers who require legacy browser support."

Can Microsoft regain ground it has lost? It will have to deliver a better search experience, greater speed and new bells and whistles for mobile devices such as voice commands, basically borrowing a page from Google's Chrome, analysts say.

Even then, "it's really going to be difficult for them," Zino said.

But he added: "This was definitely a must for them."

[garbon]

Poor mono.

[Monoriu]

I'll just use whatever that comes with the next version of Windows.

[lustindarkness]

Ugh, many Navy sites work better with IE, some only work with IE.

[Eddie Teach]

I'll just use whatever that comes with the next version of Windows.

You should adopt Chrome, accept the rule of your Google overlords.

[Monoriu]

I'll just use whatever that comes with the next version of Windows.

You should adopt Chrome, accept the rule of your Google overlords.

I still use Yahoo search.  Yahoo is my homepage.

[lustindarkness]

Chrome rocks.

[Monoriu]

Chrome rocks.

In what ways?  I've never tried it. 

[lustindarkness]

Chrome rocks.

In what ways?  I've never tried it. 

As in it does not suck like IE.

[Monoriu]

Chrome rocks.

In what ways?  I've never tried it. 

As in it does not suck like IE.

IE seems perfectly ok to me.

[garbon]

I liked some of these that were posted on Buzzfeed.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/internet-explorer-is-finally-being-killed-after-years-of-mer#.tokp4yE5G

[Monoriu]

I really don't know what you mean.  IE is blazing fast to me.

[lustindarkness]

I really don't know what you mean.  IE is blazing fast to me.

Have you used any other to compare?

[Monoriu]

I really don't know what you mean.  IE is blazing fast to me.

Have you used any other to compare?

No.  I am: loyal 

But really, the browser can't go faster.  There is basically no loading time.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Ugh, many Navy sites work better with IE, some only work with IE.

Don't remind me.  The fucking government needs to get their web design standards out of the 90s.