Microsoft Could Support IE6 For Longer!

I know it's the most depressing news you've probably heard for a long time, but Microsoft are talking about extending the life of Windows XP based on a fact that 74% of work PC's still run the 4 and a half year old OS.

This could potentially mean that IE6 (which shipped with the original versions of XP and therefore must be supported as long as the OS) could well be supported for a longer length of time too to accommodate businesses that don't want to update their IE6-specific software until they really have to (which pushes us developers further into a dim spiral of despair).

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At this rate, the perspective time for the official release and full support of the new HTML5 spec (and CSS3 spec), which is currently about 2022, may well come quicker than the death of IE6. That must be some kind of oxymoron, as IE6 will never support the HTML5 or CSS3 spec to any degree, so it could push everything back further. That just makes me wonder why we have to still be so dependant on Microsoft updating their products before we can update our service (styles & functionality).

The date for stopping support for Windows XP was originally 2014, but was thought to have been extended to 2020. However, Microsoft have recently revealed that this date is incorrect to, so we are awaiting an update to let us know when we can start rolling out new developments that won't conflict the market at all.