Run as Explorer but can’t NetEscape the End

By Jesse N.• Said El Mansour Cherkaoui • 6/16/2022 from various sources collected in the Net • 

Goodbye Internet Explorer: Microsoft finally retires the ailing web browser after 27 years- Technology News, Firstpost

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) passed away this day of June 15th 2022. IE was 27 years of aging code at the time of its death. It was born from the Microsoft Plus! pack for Windows 95 and died in Windows 10 21H2. It passed after succumbing to massive security holes, inferior code, and a bad reputation from the beginning that it simply could not heal from.

Gates was able to convince IBM to let Microsoft help out. He bought an operating system from a local manufacturer that was designed for computers similar to IBM’s. Gates edited the software to work for the new IBM computer (“Bill Gates”). But here’s what Bill Gates did: he bought a program from a small software company called the Quick and Dirty Operating System (or Q-DOS), for the price of 75,000$. Q-DOS was, in fact, a ripoff of Gary’s CPM program. He then changed its name to MS-DOS (Microsoft DOS) and licensed it to IBM. Later on, at the age of 25, Bill Gates licensed a primitive operating system, PC-DOS, to IBM for $80,000 rather than sell it outright, a move that’s usually ranked as one of the Greatest Business Moves of All Time. Bill Gates and Microsoft licensed its MS-DOS to IBM to use as the operating system for its personal computer. (In addition to Microsoft, IBM also contracted Digital Research and SofTech Microsystems to use their operating systems for IBM’s personal computer.)

During these moves by Bill Gates, IBM became focused on building machines and boxes as computers to have the operating system bought by Bill Gates as its primary functioning system the PC-DOS. Such moves become costly given that IBM specialized in investing and developing plastic empty boxes and screen and machines without engines.

In November 1985, nearly two years after his announcement, Gates and Microsoft launched Windows. Visually the Windows system looked very similar to the Macintosh system Apple Computer Corporation had introduced nearly two years earlier. Their relationship, already kind of rocky, fell apart when Microsoft announced the first version of Windows in 1985. A furious Jobs accused Gates and Microsoft of ripping off the Macintosh. March 17, 1988: Apple sues Microsoft for allegedly stealing 189 different elements of its Macintosh operating system to create Windows 2.0.

The Lenovo deal covers IBM’s desktop and laptop business including the ‘Think’ brand. Lenovo is paying IBM $1.25bn in cash and shares and assuming another $500m in debt from the US company. IBM as a result will own an 18.9% stake in the Chinese firm. Dec 9, 2004

Actually, IBM primarily generates revenue today through its five segments: Cloud & Cognitive Software; Global Business Services; Global Technology Services; Systems; and Global Financing. The top shareholders of IBM are James Whitehurst, Arvind Krishna, James Kavanaugh, Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock Inc., and State Street Corp.

IE was born out of a need for Bill Gates to dominate all things software, and an inferiority complex inspired by Netscape Navigator, a competing browser. It rose to prominence out of sheer will & monopolistic tactics through its Windows family, and came to be the most popular internet browser in 1999. From there its popularity was besieged by headlines involving things such as lack of proper updates, supporting the wrong people like Adobe Flash, and gained a reputation of being used simply to download a better browser.

IE’s reign began to crumble in 2012, when Google Chrome, a browser from a competing tech monopoly, gained more active users than IE. A few years later in 2015, IE did its best to reinvent itself by marrying Microsoft Edge, a more friendlier take on a Microsoft browser, but internet surfers had become too familiar with IE’s code to be tricked by the facelift. A few years after the marriage, Edge broke it off with IE and updated its code to Chromium.

The last years of IE were not kind, but mostly deserved. For all its negative reputation, it did help usher in the internet to computer users of the 90’s and 2000’s. Even in death, you may still hear the muffled whispers of IE’s ghost through certain outdated websites and software, such as bank, timekeeping, and government websites. The code of IE may be laid to rest, but it will live on forever in our memories, and in the ISO’s of past operating systems. Internet Explorer is survived by Microsoft EdgeHTML.