What’s all this fuss about Spartan?

We have seen a lot of bold claims in the media lately. We heard that Google were putting an end to Google Glass. Most of this was speculation and when we look at what Google themselves said, we get a different story. Now we are hearing rumours of a new web browser called Spartan that will bring the about the end of Internet Explorer. Well, kinda. The news recently broke that Microsoft are working on a new browser which will replace the much mocked IE. This paragon of web browsers promises a browser fit for the modern cross device world. The thing is, modern versions of IE achieve this. IE 11 is extremely compliant to web standards. If users of outdated versions of IE upgraded to IE 11, Spartan wouldn’t even be a thing. From what we have seen of Spartan, it’s not all  that revolutionary. It uses much of the same technology that powers IE 11. There are some cool updates, it seems a little faster, has integrated note taking and will feature Cortana too.

Why kill off Internet Explorer?

So if IE and Spartan are more or less the same thing, why kill off IE? In truth, I believe that this is more of a marketing move. IE has a bad reputation. For years it was mocked for being slow and failing to support a rapidly changing online world. For me, Internet Explorer 6 was the downfall of all the later versions.

When IE 6 came out Microsoft thought they had developed the browser to beat all browsers. Businesses and governments bought into it in a big way. They paid thousands to have it integrated into there IT systems and make sure that these systems where compliant with their security procedures. All good right? Well not really. IE 6 was not the browser everyone thought it was. It does not support basic CSS and JavaScript that fast became the norm for web developers. This was not a problem for browsers like Firefox and Chrome. Whenever there is a new update in web standards they would auto update their browsers and users wouldn’t even notice. All of the organisations that had bought into IE 6 couldn’t just update to later versions as it would cost them thousands to bring all of their security procedures up to date. Some of these organisations still run on IE 6.

So, Microsoft can’t auto update IE like other browsers can. Many people who are not particularly “tech savy” have ended up sticking with whatever version of IE is on their operating system out of the box.

So is Internet Explorer Really Gone?

This brings us to Microsoft’s current predicament. They have fixed many of the problems in IE with IE 11 but due to a combination of a bad reputation, financial costs and a lack of power users willing to commit, it has passed mostly unnoticed. So Microsoft have taken the next logical step, a re-brand. Spartan is IE 12 under a different name. This helps to remove the stigma that really started with IE 6. As for the problem of auto updates, Microsoft are offering a free upgrade to Windows 10 for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users. Windows 10 will come with Spartan right out of the box. If IE 11 is anything to go by, Spartan should be pretty good, so lets go along with Microsoft’s plan and forget the mistakes of the past.

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