UK.gov sticks to IE 6 cos it's more 'cost effective', innit

There is an upside to all this

The crappier the software HMG is using, the less likely they are to be able to get their act together and oppress us properly with all that data they've been gathering.

What choice does a small local authority have?

Come on A.C. ... do you think we really have a choice?

Anonymous 'cause I work in this sector and I'm about to tell it like it is.

The problem we face is this ...

Firstly, Government relies on a considerable amount of bespoke software. That's the stuff which handles issuing of bus passes and all the other stuff like that which authorities have to do but you can't get off the shelf.

This ends up being the domain of the small software houses.

Programmers have been basing their systems around Microsoft components for years now, because it makes their turn around quicker. I mean, personally I think it is a ton of s**t that you have to load an entire office suite on a SERVER, damn it, for the software to work.

However, when those components change, everything goes for a ball of chalk.

If we upgraded from IE6 to IE8, several of our programs fail to work.

While the big boys like Capita have the resource to re-work all their software, the small guys haven't and if we upgrade then lo and behold, we're no longer supported. They've got the cheek to think that they can dictate the tide. The problem is that without them, all the departments that use voting system software and the like ... hit the buffers.

The problem now is that we're riddled with all sorts of bits and pieces that all rely on specific versions of Microsoft software to support it.

For crying out loud, we can't even upgrade our OFFICE installation because stuff breaks.

I hear managers and Microsoft supporters tot up and trumpet the cost of going open source ... well, there is one cost that would be saved ... and that is the cost we're facing right now of hitting a brick wall. There's only so much Microsoft that can be gaffer taped by putting applications on discrete servers running in VM environments that are tailor made for whatever the application needs.

Well, the time has come, 'cause we can't do that on the client!

We stayed on IE 6 because IE 7 broke stuff. We stayed on IE 6 because IE 8 broke stuff. Heck we don't even get a choice of IE 9. If Microsoft jettison XP, then we're in deep trouble.

Those perpetuating the nice, easy Windows platforms because their too damn scared to grow a pair and get real, need to be hung by their calculators.

And most of all ... central government need to get a voice and roar at these damn software houses to get their crap in order 'cause while the local authorities can only squeak, we're at the mercy of s**t programs churned out by crap programmers who are being pressured by the all mighty dollar in to getting the product out the door as soon as possible. For crying out loud HOW MANY UPDATES have Capita issued this last twelve months, on their Academy system?

I mean, if you load Info@Work before you load Academy and then try and open a Word document through Academy, you get a Virtual Memory error. I mean, who's going to take responsibility for this crappy situation? Each software house points at the other and in the mean time, we're stuck. All we can do is make sure the users load them in the correct order. (or was it the other way around? Gah!)

And we're riddled with this stuff all over the place, 'cause no one seems to be able to program properly any more.

Thanks ... Central Government ... for wanting to devolve decisions to local areas. This means we've got no voice because our lack of buying power means we've got a weak negotiating position; and have to struggle in the mire wasting time and money to try and make stuff play nice.

Well, we're about to run out of duct tape. Win 7 is going to have to happen and if the small software houses stuff doesn't run under XP compatibility mode, we've got problems.

Goodnight ... it's been nice knowing ya'll.

(I struggle, sometimes, to determine who is to blame ... the programmers for taking advantage of such component libraries, or Microsoft for not building the damn libraries correctly and making sure that stuff is properly backwards compatible ... but then, thinking back to the 90's, backwards compatibility was never Microsoft's strong point.)

I wish...

When we tender, we have to promise our stuff *will* work with IE6, 'cause else we won't be getting the work. Then they have a shedload of plugins (which they forget to mention when we tender...) that mean the latest (released *long* after IE6!) Flash and Javascript won't play nice - and guess what? It's all our fault. The customer may be wrong, but they're paying the bills... on no wait, all the local authorities have frozen spending until they know what the new government will let them spend it on...

Now I'd better get back to writing an IE6 workround for the aforemention incompatibilities....

Anon because of obvious reasons.

the simple problem ... was the developers

Was *******g web developers writing to IE6 instead of open standards in the first place... I lost quite a number of arguments where I wanted a fat client rather than web enabled because a fat client means you can understand it and can manage it, whereas too many "web enabled" apps where fully IE proprietary with all sorts of downloaded applets and stuff, which meant you still had a fat client, but one you coyuldn't understand and couldn't manage...

"Proper" web enabled, meaning all the nonsense on the server side and pure html to/from browser I never objected to, and virtually never saw either... And was I allowed to reject such and such a package because it was going to be a support nightmare? Not a chance...

Ha!

Its called 'the legacy', welcome to it.....

@ Matt 75

We've been charging a 20% loading fee on all jobs required to be compatible with IE6 for the past year. And we've turned down contracts where the customer refuses to pay the fee. Developing for IE6 as well as modern browsers is a real cost burden; additional development and testing time, doubling up of CSS and page layout markup, redundant Javascript coding, it all adds up. Prior to us implementing the loading fee, every single project we worked on that required IE 6 compatibility went into time and cost overruns, which is why we implemented the fee. We're perfectly happy to tell customers to go elsewhere if they don't like it. And such customers are fast running out of options, because since we've started doing it, another four big web dev companies in our city have so far followed suit.

Poppycock.

Don't be naive. If they haven't switched yet, they're not going to switch. Saying that they'll switch if MS stop issuing security patches is just misguided - the statement from the government says that they'll use firewalls and malware protection to 'further protect' users running IE6, so they'll just carry on doing that.

You should all realise by now that gov departments aren't interested in proactive upgrade strategies - spend to save and all that jazz. They're much happier being reactive - waiting til something bites them on the arse before being vaguely productive.

Oh, and the virtualised IE6 container that only connects to certain websites is called Citrix / Terminal Services. And they're crap too.

Are you being sarcastic?

Saw a demo of this very thing at an MDOP conference using App V - different IE versions launching based on URL. Seemed to work fine. In the demo.

@Wibble

You were winning in the first 3 paras. Then you went with Google docs.

Ahh..but..

IE6 is the defacto standard. Just like Office is the defacto document format. Both are lockins. It's just that theIE6 one is noticeable because it stops people doing what they want. Lockins are like that some times.

Way back when everything suddenly went web app, all the developers of the corporate world were delighted to not have to do custom front end applications. Now they all pay for the saving. And will continue to do so for as long as as it takes.

Even better.. Microsoft's lockin strategy is now biting them on the bottom by stopping companies upgrading to newer versions because the software is incompatible... Which means either they re write IE6 to run on 7, or they can't stop supporting XP.

Sad thing is.. A large number of people will just do the same damn thing again, and in years to come, will be unable to move from Office when the next big thing comes along.

Ummm...

You don't think they actually use an out-the-box pre-install crapware-filled OEM Win<whatever>, do you?

They'll be using very heavily tailored standard-build XP desktops that've just been tickled and tailored for a few years. Since IE6 was actually current, quite likely.

@ bitmat animal

Possibly the most sensible post so far.

It is true to say that many other browsers work fine with .gov.uk sites (such as HMRC); it's also true to say many other browsers don't. But I comment as a 'customer' not an internal user.

I am totally in favour of the ConLib Govt making as many savings that make sense, and if the implication is that keeping IE6 is for internal intranet usage only, carry on.