Google has already announced its intent to stop supporting Internet Explorer, so the email I received today from the Google Apps support team was entirely unexpected, but it did contain some interested bits of information that I did find surprising. It also illustrates why the ReadyMadeWeb IT mantra, “Software should be handled by software experts,” is so spot-on.
The phasing out of Internet Explorer 6 is coming very fast—the email announced that Google Apps and Google Site Editor will stop supporting IE6 on March 1st. This makes the window between announcement and phase-out barely over a month long. But it’s no wonder that Google is slamming the door shut on Internet Explorer 6 as it played a key role in the recent Chinese-sponsored attack on Google. Yet despite its security and stability issues, IE6 still has a 20% market share. Many pundits are blaming this on corporate and institutional IT departments that are holding on to IE6 because an upgrade to IE7 or IE8 would break another piece of software that relies on some bit of antiquated code in the troublesome IE6.
But perhaps IT departments aren’t the culprit here. Instead, I’d place the blame with what I call “Old School Software.” Old School Software demands hiring a staff to maintain servers filled with software they didn’t write, updating client-side applications on potentially thousands of employee PCs, and leaving updating and patching to third parties. Those third parties often have little incentive to keep applications in tip top shape due to the incredible cost of switching platforms. Small bugs in a program aren’t sufficient motivation for a company to drop their database vendor and move on to something better because of the incredible cost of buying countless server and client-side software licenses. High costs therefore create software products that lurch between roughly finished versions, instead of steadily improving with each passing week or even day. That’s why IE6 is around, because the market for software has been so deeply flawed.
But now that even dirt cheap Internet connections have created a market for web-based suites like Google Apps, Zoho, and SalesForce, the old way of doing things seems absurd. With web-based or “cloud” apps your IT staff can be much smaller because they don’t have to maintain servers filled with specialized software. Instead, they can focus on keeping web browsers up-to-date (rather than clinging to outdated browsers) and providing solid Internet connectivity. Updates to the applications themselves are left in the hands of the web-based apps provider, who knows that competition is just a few clicks away.
Okay, so switching applications company-wide is never easy, but web-based app providers know that they’re not dealing with 5-year product replacement cycles and investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, the cost of switching between web-based apps comes down to a registration form and a few days of training. These are small steps for a customer to take in order to abandon lackluster software for a superior product. That’s why—again, according to the email I received—in 2009 alone “the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.” The email also said that the team’s goal for 2010 is to beat this already high number of feature improvements and additions.
If you’re thinking about web-based applications for your business or non-profit, consider these competing models. The Old School’s high prices cost your organization more than money, they also make the barriers to change incredibly high, holding you back from taking advantage of the latest and greatest—or in some cases, force you to continue using outdated and insecure software like IE6. The web-based approach moves you into a new market of fierce competition created by low-prices that encourages software developers to improve upon their product as quickly as possible.
If you have any questions about about Google Apps, Zoho, SalesForce, or any other web-based software, please email ReadyMadeWeb at info@readymadeweb.com.
Cord is the director of new media at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has been a web developer for over a decade, working with non-profits to rein in their web development costs and grow their online audiences through simple best practices.
