Aussie Online Retailer Impose IE7 Tax 365
First time accepted submitter Techy77 writes "Online retailer Kogan will impose a new tax on its customers that visit its website using Microsoft's outdated Internet Explorer 7 web browser, which means they will spend 6.8 percent more than customers on browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome. From the article: 'Kogan said his company was able to keep prices low by using technology to make its business efficient and streamlined. however its web team was having to spend a lot of time making its new website look normal on IE7.
"It’s not only costing us a huge amount, it’s affecting any business with an online presence, and costing the Internet economy millions,” Mr Kogan said.
“As Internet citizens, we all have a responsibility to make the Internet a better place. By taking these measures, we are doing our bit.”'"
Re:Erm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Erm... (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft provides Virtual PC images for a range of IE + Windows versions to test your website with.
Check it out at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11575 [microsoft.com]
Re:Erm... (Score:1, Informative)
I've used them (with VirtualBox). They are large and slow, and it would probably be easier to buy a cheap Windows 7 laptop instead.
I hate having to go through all of this for one browser, when supporting Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera is so easy in comparison.
Re:Block or ignore IE7 perhaps? (Score:5, Informative)
Kogan is reasonably well known: founded in 2006, they are one of the fastest growing Australian companies. [wikipedia.org] They aimed to release the world's first Android phone [engadget.com] back in 2008/2009, were the first with a ChromeBook [slashdot.org], and they produce their own Agora line of Android devices. [kogan.co.uk]
This particular move may be clever marketing, but they also have a recent history of ambition and innovation beyond what you'd expect from a medium sized Australian consumer electronics retailer.
Re:Erm... (Score:4, Informative)
If it encourages folks to upgrade to v8 or v9, I imagine microsoft would be pretty happy with it actually.
It doesn't. There's a screenshot in TFA -- they only link to Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera (in this order).
Re:Erm... (Score:3, Informative)
rather than tweaking layouts, writing exception rules or writing work around for one browser that holds less than 30% of the market
That's a pretty fat tail there!
Yes, Pareto principle and all, spend your efforts on the 20% that give 80% of the income.
But if you alienate a substantial part of your user base, you won't attract the ones you have coded for either. All they will have heard about it is bad things. Because the Pareto principle works both ways - the 20% who are dissatisfied will cause 80% of your losses.
And, in any case, if you have to make special exceptions for IE in the first place, you're Doing It Wrong. Use subsets that are supported across the line, and write HTML/css so it degrades gracefully. It's not hard. Really.