Before I go further, let me make the disclosure. I love Windows 7, so do most organizations that I know of. But just the admiration is not enough of a business case for organizations to migrate to Windows 7 one fine day.

Now, if MS decides to have a step motherly approach to Windows XP with its IE 9 launch, it certainly doesn’t say much about its appreciation for the enterprise. How lame is it from an enterprise standpoint, when declarations are made on the lines of, “No, IE 9 will not support Windows XP!”.

Now, one argument that can be made is that IE 9 targets end users who are already mass users of Windows 7. But then, enterprises are also users of Internet Explorer as a browser. Many business applications are by and large dependant on the browser now, and this decision of Microsoft just doesn’t make the grade for the enterprise.

Most businesses are still slow in terms of large scale adoption of Windows 7—largely because PC/laptop purchases are dependent on client refresh cycles. Yet another reason was the non-event that Windows Vista proved to be from a corporate usage standpoint. So in a country (and even a world) where Windows XP still remains the OS of choice for organizations, the lack of Windows XP support in IE 9 reeks of a mercenary threat than of fair business practice.

Firefox is finding large scale adoption among corporate end-users who will find no problems in convincing IT teams to migrate en-masse to the free browser. Not exactly a desirable effect on IE 9 adoption, is it?

Coffee, guys? And a bit of backward compatibility?