Blogger Robert McLaws, of Windowsnow.com, is mad has heck and isn't going to take it anymore. On his blog this week, McLaws declared he's boycotting Microsoft's IE Mobile Web browser, banishing it from his Windows Mobile smartphone and using Opera Mobile instead. (You can find another take, and additional context, on McLaws' boycott call on our Microsoft Subnet. Microsoft has talked publicly about the development of IE Mobile 6 (as we recently reported), a new browser that's built with the rendering engine used in desktop IE 6 (released way back in 2001), with some elements from the current IE 7 and from the IE 8 which is in beta test. (You can check out our slide show and reader poll about IE Mobile 6.) But the browser will support fewer Web standards than the current desktop browser, will be available only for Windows Mobile 6.1.4 devices, and, almost incredibly, won't be available as a separate downloadable application: you'll only be able to get it through a mobile carrier. And it's not expected to appear until about mid-2009, via first deployment with China Mobile. For McClaws, it's the breaking point: "We’ve waited something like 4 years to get a decent browser for Windows Mobile, and they’re not even going to make it a downloadable update? Screw multimedia features, i just want a better renderer, mmkay?" It's time for action. "Microsoft may be content to let Mozilla and Apple kick their butt in the mobile space, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be caught in the middle," he writes. "I’d like you to join me. Maybe if our voices are loud enough, maybe we can convince the Windows Mobile team to actually build something innovative… and release it before the end of the decade. I know that’s asking a lot, but I think it can be done." So far our online poll indicates long-suffering Windows Mobile users may be more charitable, if no less frustrated, than McLaws: 43% say they'll check out IE Mobile 6 when Windows Mobile is eventually updated, and 32% say it's got to be better than what they have now.
