When Web sites and Web apps collide with IE 9: Questions and some answers

“People go to the Web for sites, not the browser, much as they go to their PC for apps, not Windows.”

That’s what Microsoft Corporate Vice President Dean Hachamovitch told attendees of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 9 beta launch in San Francisco this week, where Microsoft made available for download a public Beta 1 of IE 9. Hachamovitch’s comment — and Microsoft’s showcasing of a number of big-name partners customizing their sites and apps for IE 9 — got me thinking about what happens when the line between apps and sites are not so clear-cut.

Here was my thinking: If IE 9 is designed to blur the lines between Web sites and Web apps, does that imply that Microsoft is counting on content developers to do with IE what the company did with Windows — namely, to build apps that work better in Microsoft’s environment than anywhere else? In other words, is Microsoft looking to use the “Windows first/Windows best” strategy that worked for operating systems with the Web? (Looks like Technologizer’s Harry McCracken’s been wondering about some of these same things, as he noted in his post this week entitled “The Unwelcome Return of ‘Best Viewed with Internet Explorer”)

A hypothetical example: Will the Rough Guides travel site/app in IE 9 look and work the same as it will in Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari? Will it require the developers of that site to maintain completely different versions of their site for IE 9 than other HTML5-compatible browsers?

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When Web sites and Web apps collide with IE 9: Questions and some answers | ZDNet

Posted By: JMH
18 Sep 2010