Over the past few days, the Internet has been all a-Twitter over the Microsoft announcement of its new browser (codename Project Spartan), and the intention to make it the default browser in Windows 10. Many articles are stating that “Microsoft is killing Internet Explorer”, and suggest that Internet Explorer will suffer an ignominious death in the upcoming weeks.
It is true that Microsoft is very eager to tout the virtues of its new browser, which has been freed from the burdens of backward-compatibility that has always plagued Internet Explorer. However, there are hundreds of thousands of browser-based applications in use by thousands of Microsoft customers, and Microsoft recognizes the need to continue to support these applications long into the future. Consequently, the venerable, but aging, Internet Explorer will live side-by-side with Spartan on Windows 10.
So, what does this mean for AdvancedMD and our customers? It’s all good news!
Better compatibility for standards-based applications and features
New applications released by AdvancedMD (such as patient portal and AdvancedInsight) are built to be cross-browser compatible and take advantage of the capabilities of modern standards-based browsers. Also, for the past few years our development efforts have been very heavily focused on making our flagship applications cross-browser compatible. All new features, applications and products are created to be cross-browser compatible, with a modern, consistent look and feel.
Because Microsoft’s new browser will be fully standards-based, AdvancedMD engineers will be able to enhance our solutions and build new features without having to accommodate differences between Internet Explorer and other modern browsers. This allows us to deliver new solutions and an ever-improving user experience more quickly. Over time—long before Microsoft stops supporting Internet Explorer—all AdvancedMD applications will run equally well in all of the most popular modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and the new Microsoft Project Spartan).
More stability for AdvancedMD PM and EHR
Microsoft will no longer be putting a lot of effort into enhancing Internet Explorer to support new standards. Internet Explorer will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future, but changes will be centered primarily around security updates and performance enhancements. This means that fewer bugs will be introduced into AdvancedMD applications by changes within Internet Explorer, and AdvancedMD engineers and testers can spend less time keeping up with those changes. For you, it means a more stable environment for our entire suite of unified solutions.
Resources:
- Microsoft IEBlog: A break from the past: the birth of Microsoft’s new web rendering engine
- Smashing Magazine article: Inside Microsoft’s New Rendering Engine For The “Project Spartan”
- Financial Post article: Microsoft Corp ‘killing off’ Internet Explorer? That’s not really true
