I had the opportunity to sit on the plane next to an IE PM recently and we chatted about the future of IE. He was very optimistic as I'd expect him to be, but when I asked him about missing features he explained he didn't think that was the problem. Let me give you a couple of examples where I think he's wrong.

The "Most Visited" welcome page is very cool. I see things like my blog (a SharePoint site), facebook, my search page (don't guess), among other places I frequent. Not only do you see this awesome collection, but every time you add a new tab you're one click away from being where you want to be... and with a slick thumbnail to boot!

 

A common SharePoint problem is having to generate favorites and handle retyping URLs trying to get to places you go essentially everyday, and very likely, many times per day... I've seen a few partner attempts at making it easier to save to SharePoint sites, but even simply getting to common places you frequent can be a pain and take someone with smarts to configure your favorites... Of course I could create bookmarks or bookmarklets, but opening up to my "Most Visited" seems so intuitive and welcoming. It's just slick..

I was recently downloading about 20+ patches from HP all with archaic alpha numeric hotfixes and updates to my laptop. In IE it would throw them in a temp folder and I'd loose track... obviously the IT savvy browser would create some folder in "downloads" and possibly add names to the files as they are downloaded... 'cause otherwise you'd loose track if this was the Sound driver update or the Video Driver update and when it looks like NS3084.exe you don't know what it is. Good luck finding it if you let IE take care of it and you downloaded a handful and clicked *RUN.* What happens is the first one wants you to reboot and the others get downloaded and you reboot. After it comes back up... hey what happened to those other patches? Oh, not a best practice to download multiple drivers at once? How do users know that? So to the rescue Google Chrome has this slick downloads history tracker feature that shows you on the bottom of the browser each of your downloads without popups and additional browser windows and all that jazz.

Another common SharePoint problem is saving to sharepoint and downloading from SharePoint in a smooth way. Let me illustrate the problem. You can see how this interface would be pretty slick for someone on SharePoint downloading docs from a bunch of different sites.

So I talked about it 1) Being Intuitive about where you want to start your journey (Making SharePoint sites quicker to access) 2) Intuitive about where you download/save your files (from SharePoint) and now 3) Intuitive about where you go within that domain ( SharePoint site.) The URL completion is more than just intuitive about knowing where you've been in that domain, it knows what is in it, because it previously indexed it and categorized the content. So how about presenting me with my document libraries, my photo libraries, by posts? Incredibly it understands what a list or library is based on it's algorithms for cache and indexing and understands that the Allitems.aspx page is significant! So of course there are some expected usability issues as well.

Editing is an HTML experience. The form itself had some wierdness when I'd go back and insert a word letters would disappear... so blogging wasn't so good. The spell check without having to turn on spell check was pretty slick. If I misspelled something I'd get the red squiggly line under my words, but the right click didn't give me what I'd expect.

Multi-file upload control... not there. I saw on some SharePoint sites the page layouts the web parts would often overlap the second column if there wasn't enough space on the screen. Hence if you're running 640 by 480 (likely even 1028 by 780) my blog would look poorly written. It would be a lot of scrolling anyway, but it doesn't work so well. Most browsing with SharePoint using Chrome really isn't impacted, mostly it's the editing. Teleriks editing controls aren't something I've tried yet with Chrome... You'll have to let me know if those features solve the problem... I actually expect there's a really good chance it does.

Eli Robillard (SharePoint MVP) put together a decent post about some of the SharePoint issues you'll find in Google Chrome. From the poorer save and Office editing experience to a bit of detail around what does work ok. There are obviously some under the covers features that are pretty slick as well (focus on true render speeds, process optimization, etc...), and I'm sure you've found things you like in Opera or Firefox or Safari... I'm really loving these browser wars... As a developer I'm sure it's a huge headache, as is support, but as a user these battles bring some of the best of the best. Let's let the days of IE 6 dominance doldrums die. Bring on the new challengers and let Microsoft truly bring it's best and brightest. Having retention problems? I suggest you focus on some coolness. Reminds me of one of the Balmer mantras... be first (market leader), make the most money, or be the Coolest. Be the shizzz as Richard Riley and Snoop Dog would say.

So I'm saying "Hey Kool Aid kids", don't sit on your hands. I know you're ramping up and building up, but there are also cool features we need and SharePoint can't solve all these problems for us. Microsoft's answer to Google Chrome must mean a better browser experience that takes us closer to "the OS is my browser" and I'm cool with SharePoint being the Desktop that gives me my apps, but IE has to think that way. Rich vs. Reach is a great exercise, but let's take it a step further. The SharePoint and IE guys should go out for a drink and consider what Ballmer told Mary-Jo Folley about SharePoint being the next great OS, even if he was speaking out of turn or thinking outside the box without PRs permission. If there's not a high level enough strategy there, LET THERE BE. Much of the world is convinced it is the strategy and maybe most of both PM teams don't see it that way, it's worth a shot and some great correction/direction for at least the IE team. I know the SharePoint team is riding this awesome wave and to stay on top, I see this as a next great step... IE please help, you've got a place. Think to yourself how can I help SharePoint become the greatest Cloud OS, I'm sure you might find a couple of features you weren't previously considering. EU/Antitrust, layoff for a minute and let's think about what this could mean for our future..." If you need some help brainstorming... give a SharePoint person a call.

Joel Oleson AKA "SharePoint Joel"

(Blog Post written on SharePoint with Google Chrome, Not recommended... it was a pain putting in those DIVs and other HTML tags.)