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37signals, producers of the popular Basecamp, Highrise and Backpack applications, have announced their intention to "phase out" support for IE 6 on August 15th of this year. The company announced this decision on their product blog last Thursday.
37signals explains dropping IE 6 support as a way to provide "significantly better online experiences", claiming the browser built in 2001 just isn't good enough for that.
They explain the implications of the transition and who will need to upgrade with this:
What are the implications of this transition? As of August 15th, 2008, future features and any improvements made to existing features may not work with IE 6. If you are using IE 7, Firefox 2 or 3, or Safari, you don't have to do anything — everything will continue as is for you. However, if you are using IE 6, and you want to make sure everything works, you will need to upgrade your browser to either IE 7, Firefox, or Safari. All of these browsers are free and all of them will deliver a much better overall experience. The web will be a lot better for you.
They follow these "implications" with this "special note", which contains the most important implication of all:
Special note for people using Basecamp with clients: If your clients are using IE 6 (you'll want to ask them) you may want to provide them some assistance in upgrading their browser.
I'm sure 37signals has some measurments showing that IE 6 users aren't the bulk of their customer base, but if they're relying on usage alone to justify IE 6 then they're in for a sad surprise. Consider this: a mid-sized company might have 70 employees and around 70 customers. Each logs in to basecamp several times a day, providing usage statistics. Only 10 of these customers (none of the employees) still uses IE 6. 10 employees looks like 14% of the user group - not insignificant, but not huge. 37signals might think they could get most of those to switch, so at worse they're looking at losing just a few percent of their customer base. Right?
Wrong. That 14% works for major corporations - the type of highly controlled and highly-standardized environment that is the unfortunate reality of the IT world. Thanks for the "special note" there, but there's no assistance I can provide that will get these khakis-and-polo-shirts companies to upgrade any more than I can get them to quit thinking buying cake for their employees once a month will keep they happy. That small 14% represents a much larger percent of the cash in the software industry, so while they're only a few blips on your radar, they're the type of client most small to mid-sized software companies can't afford to lose. We can't stop supporting them, and we can't make them upgrade either.
37signals decision to quit supporting IE 6 forces us to choose between using Basecamp and supporting our customers, so the answer is pretty clear: goodbye, Basecamp. You're losing 100% of our business by refusing to support only 14% of our users - how's that for a bad customer experience?
I'm really interested to see what sort of "improved customer experience" 37signals provides without the "rusty weight" of IE 6 holding them back. I didn't feel that my online file sharing and message repository experience was lacking. It's a pretty simple task we're talking about here - simple applications for simple tasks is supposed to be what 37signals does best, so I'm really interested to know what feature-set is so compelling and important that it can't be offered within the restrictions of an aging browser. Let's be honest: sharing files and documenting decisions is pretty boring. What are they going to add to spice it up? Drag and drop?
Yet 37signals has a reputation of building great applications with great and simple designs, so while I sound very skeptical, I really am just interested. I really believe in this company - when it comes to good design and productive work philosophies, they really get it right. Perhaps the next generation of Basecamp really will blow the socks off of this one - too bad I won't be there to see it.
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Agreed. This will undoubtedly cause problems for some enterprise users, and you are exactly right about the choice any affected company will make. The whole article seems like it could have come from my mouth, except for that last paragraph. I really am skeptical and can't wait to see what kind of whiz-bang they add to project management. I am sure it will be earth shattering. </sarcasm>
I wonder if it's not really about features but more about development time. Much of the time spent developing at our company is in making apps or websites work with ie6.
I applaud 37signals for this decision. IE6 is a deprecated browser and industry professionals should be encouraging their clients to upgrade to something that better adheres to standards and is not a burden to development teams.
Enabling clients to continue using deprecated technology is a disservice to them. Take the time to explain the benefits of upgrading and keeping current with technology. How many times have you gone into a system that hasn't been kept up to date and had the realization that upgrading was going to be a far more expensive endeavor than it would have been had the system/solution been kept on a regular upgrade path?
You may not agree, but in addition to software development I have 13 years of WAN/LAN experience. It's always cheaper to be proactive about your technology.
Unfortunately, "Enabling Clients" is what this business is about some of the time. You can talk all you want about pushing technology forward, but sometimes Bank of America or Comcast wants to pay you a lot of money to build them some software. If they operate on IE 6, are you going to refuse?
Sometimes we have to enable clients in whatever way they want to be enabled, and that includes using deprecated technology. Sure, we should steer them away from it, but it's just not possible in every situation.
Steve: I bet you're right. It's probably to ease their development workload rather than provide new and great features. We'll have to see I guess.
Incredible, according to the W3c school's stats IE6 is still representing ~26% of the users of Internet. On website I work on (who communicate with large corporation), our stats are even higher at nearly 35%.
In my opinion it's the wrong decision they took...
How come they don't support Opera?
Probably the best browsing experience out there ;-)
IF I had been using Basecamp much at work (which I occasionally still do though, the free 1-plan option) I'd have a problem with this, as my Department is on a Microsoft platform, AND using IE6 internally. I'm in the fortunate position to be able to install anything I want on my work-PC (I'm GOD ;-) !), but 99% of my colleagues cannot choose - they're sstuck with IE6. But then agina they don't use Basecamp.
To cut to the chase, the sooner the better (the ending of support for IE6). I've grown many grey hairs and had many sleepless night over the quirks of this browser.
The beauty of creating flex applications, is that the last thing I need to worry about if it'll look different on another browser, as a long as they have Flash, which would be odd in this day and age.
You got to pay to play. Do you want to use gee-whiz isn't that cool feature number 22? Requires a modern browser, please upgrade. There's nothing wrong with that.
IE6 is almost two versions behind and you can't expect everybody on the internet to continue supporting it. If people expect technology service companies to keep providing new and exciting features to their products then they may have to upgrade their portal to that service. Are software developers required to code alternate versions of their applications that work with Windows 98 because a large number of people in their market choose not to upgrade? I think not.
There is a point where supporting an older platform is no longer cost effective and apparently 37 Signals has decided they've reached that point with IE6. If it costs them more money to write alternate code for a legacy browser than what they get back then that is absolutely the correct business decision to make. If you don't like it and don't wish to upgrade then go somewhere else. If the service is important enough to you then you'll upgrade.
In fact I wish more companies would take this route. One of the reasons a large number of people have not upgraded from IE6 is because they are running it from their old install disk of WinXP or Win2000 and don't know any better. Most people can probably upgrade from IE6 to IE7 with no issues but do not simply because Microsoft doesn't force an upgrade. Which I think they should for just the security reasons alone. If more websites and companies openly asked people to upgrade from IE6 then I bet they would. But we're stuck in this mindset that we must continue supporting IE6 without explaining the benefits of upgrading.
There are corporations that have legacy code that requires IE6 but there are solutions that allow IE6 and IE7 to run on the same machine. What's wrong with doing that to continue to support legacy code you cannot or choose not to update? Or a better option, keep IE6 and get your clients to install Firefox. I quite don't understand what the problem is and what the whining is about. There are solutions if one bothers to look for them.
And 37 Signals may lose 100% of the author's business but they are not going to lose 100% of their customers currently using IE6. There will be people who will upgrade to continue using the service. And that's a good thing.
@Travis:
"Are software developers required to code alternate versions of their applications that work with Windows 98 because a large number of people in their market choose not to upgrade? I think not."
Doesn't it depend on who their clients are? If your client is a company who chose not to update past Windows 98 for whatever reason, then yeah, you are required to code alternate versions of your app to suit their needs. That's why they hired you.
I think you're missing the point. I'm not defending IE 6 here - I hate IE 6 and I hate coding for it. I understand 37signals desire to drop it, and I'm glad they feel like they can. I just have too many clients still using it who really can't upgrade, so I'm stuck, and that means no more basecamp for me.
I am contractly forced to support IE5 and newer until 2011 or until Microsoft stops supporting it. May that happen soon :(
Let's not forget that Apple won't support IE6 with MobileMe. and that 37signals know what they are doing. And they in the most cases do what the others dream to do ( like drop support of IE6 ). I'm really hoping that's the beginning of a trend.
@RJ Owen
If "I" was coding an application for a small number of clients that require IE6, or Windows98 for that matter, then of course I would support it. But companies that sell a software package or a service drop support for legacy platforms all the time. I made the upgrade from Win2000 to WinXP simply because I had finally started running into apps that required WinXP.
37 Signals is a company that offers a service which is quite different than supporting their own personal clients. They make a product that they are hoping more and more people will sign up for so that they can make money. If they feel that adding new features to get new customers requires dropping IE6 or that supporting IE6 is costing them money, then that is the correct business decision for them to make.
I don't feel that I'm missing the point as I never said you were defending IE6. The point I was trying to make was that 37 Signals has different needs/requirements than you do and comparing their business model with your's is not a proper comparison. Apparently I failed miserably at making that point.
@Travis: Thanks for clearing it up.
I'm not saying 37signals is wrong in their decision or that our business models are the same - it's just that the data they're using to make the decision might not take into consideration that large pockets of non-IE6 users are chained to the IE6 crowd, so they might lose more customers than they think. Unfortunately I'm one of those.
A bit off topic but wanted to share a nice confluence of Adobe technology and Basecamp - ExportReports.com.
It allows you to export Basecamp projects to PDF http://www.exportreports.com. Its built using ColdFusion and the Basecamp CFC built by Terrence Ryan.
We just launched version 1.0. The first report is free.
Ahmet said: "Incredible, according to the W3c school's stats IE6 is still representing ~26% of the users of Internet."
It's not 26% of all Internet users, it's 26% of all users accessing the w3schools website. That's why Firefox is at 41%.
In reality, Firefox has only reached the 20% mark, which is stll pretty impressive.
This is a great decision for anyone in a position to do so....What you guys need to understand is that it's not as simple as saying "Let's suppport IE6". It's often a painstaking process that impedes future development and takes time and money.
I think that more larger companies should follow in their footsteps if they can. I personally can't, at this point in time. But I would LOVE to be able to.
Take HSBC for example: they DON'T support Firefox 3.0. There site is significantly broken in FF 3.0, you CAN'T transfer money! Now how much do you think they are investing to try to fix this? How much of this problem was cause by willingly trying to support older technology?
I'm not saying they are wrong; I'm saying it came back to bite them in the ass.
With that said, how hard is it to click a button to upgrade to IE 7? As developers, I don't think we should keep harboring ignorance of users. Forcing may be a big step, but I'm fully in support of a gentle nudge.IE: http://www.savethedevelopers.org/ (nice simple javascript pop down in the upper right hand corner of the screen).
Let's face it, people aren't going to know they're using crap, unless you tell them.
@Baz:
I understand that supporting old browsers is a huge pain as well as anyone, but that doesn't contract my point at all.
My point isn't whether or not people SHOULD upgrade to IE6 - it's just that I'm not in a position to force large corporate clients to do so. I'm not going to stop taking their business, and so if Basecamp doesn't support IE6, then I can't use it as a project management tool on projects with those types of clients.
Nothing you said in there is wrong - it just doesn't address the concerns I'm discussing in this post.
And by "contract", I mean "contradict." :)
It's pre-mature to drop IE6 since it still has 25% of the market (even higher for enterprises). Good luck forcing them to upgrade.
If 37signals doesn't want the space, somebody else will take it, as I keep mentioning:
http://qgsoftware.com/blog/2008/08/15/migrating-from-basecamp-to-5pm/
While 37signals developers are making their life easier (who wouldn't want that), others will still work hard to make clients lives easier. They pay the bills.
One thing I am hoping for is that this push will dwindle IE 6 use and also force companies to reevaluate their IT department. Far too many companies still use IE 6 because they have staff that is incapable of writing applications that work in anything other than IE browsers or they are unwilling to do so. This is particularly true in companies that do a lot of out sourcing.
There really is no excuse to use a browser that is 7 years old when a replacement (IE 7) has already been out for a few years. Plenty of time to upgrade, and this is not like the XP vs Vista debate. Vista itself simply costs too much in time, resources and trouble for the switch. That is for a different discussion.
I am 100% sure 37 Signals has evaluated this decision and has chalked up acceptable loss. Not that hard to install FireFox and keep on trucking. Good for them. The time has come to say enough is enough and kick it to IE 6 users.
"You can talk all you want about pushing technology forward, but sometimes Bank of America or Comcast wants to pay you a lot of money to build them some software. If they operate on IE 6, are you going to refuse?"
Yes I am.
At the company I work for, I'm lucky enough to work with developers who won't work backwards to pander to unsophisticated clients. Regardless of how big they are.
It's simply not worth the effort.
At our company, security is a top priority, and as such our service does not support IE6. However, we understand that some people at work have no other option other than IE6. As a response, we created a document for them to send to their IT guys which outlines reasons why they should offer an alternative to IE6.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17681961/Why-Your-Company-Should-Offer-an-Alternative-to-IE6
-Arsen
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