E-Marketing in Minneapolis David Vinge, eMarketing Dashboard : Internet Explorer 8 Could Break Applications, Gartner Warns

Monday, March 17, 2008

Internet Explorer 8 Could Break Applications, Gartner Warns



Microsoft's support for Web standards in IE 8 could cause big headaches for enterprise IT developers. That's the opinion of analysts at tech research firm Gartner which cautions in a new report that IE 8's default standards mode "will result in pages that don't display correctly for some enterprise applications."

That's because many Web- or intranet-facing applications used in business were built to work with previous versions of Explorer, in which Microsoft often favored its own protocols over universal Web standards. With Explorer 8, slated for full release later this year, Microsoft has promised default compatibility with W3C guidelines.

Gartner is recommending that enterprise developers fall in line with Microsoft's commitment to standards when creating new Web applications. "Strive to design for standards, not browsers," Gartner said. "Don't depend on any one client-side technology. Focus instead on validated user interaction patterns." In addition, "Test your designs not just with IE versions, but also with recent versions of Firefox, Opera and Safari." Download this report from Gartner (PDF) dated 12-Mar-2008.

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