IE Toast?

Many probably noticed the hoo-ha a couple of weeks back over Microsoft's comments regarding IE/Windows' future. (Summary: no significant upgrades to IE/Windows unless you upgrade your Operating System)

Well, now they're halting development of IE/Mac. So, having stomped everyone else on windows, they're ducking out of the fight and abandoning the Mac to Apple's Safari.

I can't help thinking that this is a stupendously dumb move on MS's part - the competition in the browser market¹ is just starting to get going again, and MS are taking their ball and going home...

[later edit:
Zeldman has more, including confirmation from one of the team, and a good summary:

after spending billions of dollars to defeat all competitors and to absolutely, positively own the desktop browsing space, Microsoft as a corporation is no longer interested in web browsers

There's more, read it all.]

[even later edit:
Eric Meyer also has a good post up, including a list of reasons we should be grateful that IE/Mac existed.]

¹Next time you're reading a weblog that has some form of stats tracking on it², go have a look at the stats. I'm seeing quite a few blogs with 10%, 15%, 20% or even 25% mozilla-based browsers. I stand by my assertion that the early adopters are moving.

²For instance, instapundit has sitemeter and extreme tracker counters down at the bottom.

[Link: MozillaZine]