Dead at 27

 

A Parable of Modern Technology: Internet Explorer Dies After 27 Years (A blog borrowed from Albert Mohler)

But I'm going to end today noting an obituary.

It's not an obituary for a person, no worry. It's an obituary for a product. And that product was Internet Explorer. It turns out it's dead. Microsoft has killed it.

It announced some time ago that Explorer was no longer going to be supported, but as it is, what was once the most popular internet browser, frankly, the first commonly used internet browser in the world among consumers. It is now no longer supported because it no longer exists. Internet Explorer has died.

Here's another irony for you. One of the signs that Internet Explorer was in decline is that people were using Internet Explorer in order to download other internet browsers, then to abandon Internet Explorer. Now that just shows you something about the obsolescence that comes in all kinds of products, very fast for technological products. But it also reminds you that something that could just be seemingly as essential as well say a piece of furniture in your house, Internet Explorer is now something that well, just to state the issue clearly, most younger people listening to The Briefing today never used and probably never heard of.

Internet Explorer by the way, was released by Microsoft in 1995. But now fast forward, what web browsers are most commonly used? It turns out the Google's Chrome has about 65% of the world's share of the internet browser sector. You follow that, Apple Safari has only 19%. And from there they really fall off. You have Edge, the newer product put out by Microsoft, at about 4%. But that's just a little bit ahead of what had been another big internet browser phenomenon known as Firefox. The Associated Press had it right when it said that "Internet Explorer now joins Blackberry phones, dial up modems and Palm Pilots in the dust bin of tech history." One parable for us all to consider is that dust bin of tech history is growing very high, but also very fast. That's another point about the society around us, at least in terms of technology. And remember technology impacts individual lives and society at large, the pace is now coming with incredible velocity. Today's absolute mainstay can become something that children in just a few years and teenagers have never heard of.

Finally, the problem is that many people think that moral change should be expected just in the same way, just that fast. Moral principles upon which civilization has depended simply thrown into another form of the dust bin of history.

We know better. We better know better.

Al Moher

It's amazing how fast technology and commerce has progressed since I started my business in 1991. When we opened, I didn't have a fax. I remember thinking how advanced we were when I hooked up my new rolled paper fax. Then I bought a huge monitored desk top. Later, a bag phone, then a flip phone, then a laptop, then a Blackberry, later the iPhone. Its a rapid world that we live in and one thing is for sure; It's getting ready to change.... learn, learn, learn. Be an advocate for continued learning.

T. Kyle Swicegood