Why Can't Businesses Upgrade their Browsers from IE6/IE7? [closed]

Question

I have read lots these past few weeks on IE6, seeing if it was really that bad to make it look right. I have just learned HTML and CSS this past year so I've been spoiled to start with basically CSS3 and HTML5, and I can do some really cool stuff super fast. I'm no IE6 master and I don't have years of experience with IE. So I thought it'd take a little time to figure out all the hacks to IE6/7 discovered and just implement them.

But it's way harder than that (or maybe just way too much work). I'd have to either completely rebuild my design using "Internet Explorer 'Principles'", or cut out a lot of the neat things I could do using more recent technologies.

For a million and one other reasons, everyone who builds things online seems to think IE should die.

My question is, why can't businesses upgrade their browsers?

When I work with businesses, they almost always resist the first time I ask, but 5 seconds later I'll show them what it looks like on my computer and talk about how great the latest stuff is (how much more secure later browser are, all the famous IE security cases, how much smoother and faster they new browsers are, how the IE team has basically missed the boat entirely, how much smoother business processes run, etc.), and they get excited! And within a few seconds they're up and running with Chrome or something.

So can businesses not upgrade for some reasons? What are the reasons a business cannot upgrade?

• The main reason I think of is because they have an old version of windows. But a) wasn't there a legal case against this? and b) somebody must have figured out how to install Chrome or Firefox on ancient versions of Windows by now.
• Another reason is ROI. Basically that it costs too much to change. But is there any basis for that, because it actually seems that if you were using a cell phone from 2001 vs. an iPhone, you could do a lot more much quicker and easier, so you could focus your time on more "valuable" tasks. Same with browsers, it seems even more valuable to upgrade because it will save you time and hassle and virus software and restarting your computer and IT guys in the end.
• Last reason is market share. But if everyone was convinced of the value of time saved, and problems/issues/viruses avoided, and the ROI of user experience, then ultimately the market share would decrease like we're seeing.

Update

Side question: Do these companies with IE6/7 generally have javascript enabled? That way I could at least hack something quick together.

Update

I whipped together a page to help non computer savvy people make the change... hopefully :). Check it out at InternetEnabled.org. Just started, has a long way to go. Code is on Github.

Answer 1

Usually because they have some old web application that doesn't work with newer versions of IE, and that is critical for their work.

They could use a different brand of browser, but usually they don't have the computer skills to use multiple browsers. When the new browser would register itself as default, they could never find their way back to IE6 so that their application works.

So, what they would need is either an upgrade to their old application, or some computer education. Both cost money, and it's usually much more than what they see that they can gain from it. They could upgrade, but they won't beacuse it costs too much.

Answer 2

There can be multiple reasons.

Is it worth doing, would an executive ask. There is a cost related to upgrading browsers on a thousand of computers and maintaining the new configuration, so what's the benefit, in terms of ROI?

Then, having all computers same helps greatly, support-wise. So from support point of view it's often better to have all computers at the same level (even if that level is not so high) than to have each computer on its individual level.

Or, businesses might not even care of IE issues because the five web sites they use daily look fine.

And then, Microsoft has a great marketing department whose main purpose is to make CEOs believe they shouldn't even try the fancy other technologies.