July, 2009 to May, 2010
Take a look at this table and the graphic. (Click picture for a larger version.) If it doesn’t make you afraid, you don’t understand the situation.
The basis for software as a service (SaaS), things such as Salesforce CRM, Google Docs, and a whole raft of others, is the ability for a browser to present a fair imitation of a locally installed application. To do that, the creators of SaaS products rely on certain standards. If they say, “XYZ” to the browser, they have to be confident it will display, “XYZ” and not “xyZ2”. Look again at the table. As of May, 2010, nearly one in five internet users was still browsing with the hoary IE6, a browser never renowned for adherence to standards and now far, far, out of date.
Look over your own user base. What types and versions are they using? How is that impacting their experience and how does that reduce or enhance security? Too often we build to the specifications of the latest and greatest and totally ignore that many of our people may be accessing our SaaS applications with something much older or more obscure.
Is the solution to build applications to the lowest common denominator? Absolutely not. Doing so is self-defeating and freezes development at a given point. The solution is to support a reasonable number of browsers and at least one back from the current version AND to encourage/force end user upgrades. Easier said than done in some shops, but at the finish, there is no other answer. Until you get a handle on this issue, the ghosts of the past will haunt your current projects.
Thoughts? Your experiences? Suggestions?