In the web design and web application world, Internet Explorer is always the Elephant in the Corner. The most popular web browser is one of the more cantankerous and annoying web browsers to design HTML and JavaScript for use inside it. For a long time a few web designers have preached a need for Web Standards. However, IE’s lack of standards made that unlikely. Only when IE actually move ever so slightly towards standards did the WS crowd feel vindicated.

Additionally, Internet Explorer is the gaping hole in computer security. People rarely need to patch Windows or Office so much as patch IE (and often).

Normally I roll my eyes at just about anything Dvorak writes. However, he does point out a new argument for the “No More IE” crowd. Unfortunately until Microsoft stockholders put the pressure on the company to change, I really doubt this elephant is going anywhere.

Column from PC Magazine: The Great Microsoft Blunder

I think it can now be safely said, in hindsight, that Microsoft’s entry into the browser business and its subsequent linking of the browser into the Windows operating system looks to be the worst decision—and perhaps the biggest, most costly gaffe—the company ever made. I call it the Great Microsoft Blunder.