So that’s the question I’m pondering today. With the advent of the new Parallels Desktop for Mac, will Mac users who’ve clung to their IE 5.5 ditch the legacy browser for the ability to run the newer versions of IE through Parallels?
I’m really not sure, but with all the known issues / weaknesses of IE 5.5 Mac… I wouldn’t be surprised if some Mac users decided to drop it in favor of being able to run IE6 or the new IE7. Of course, Mac is really pushing the ability to run Windows software from their OS. Who can blame them? Linux has been touting Wine for ages, and now Mac can do the same thing.
I’m genuinely curious though about whether or not this new product will cause a significant plummet in the remaining IE 5.5 Mac’s we see around. If it does in the long run, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for web developers to start feeling safe excluding or minimizing IE 5.5 Mac support.
Personally, I don’t understand why a Mac user would choose to stick with a Windows browser (an unsupported one at that) when they have the option of running a stronger browser like Safari or Opera, or any other of a plethora of choices. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t quite comprehend the reason for the choice. Perhaps it’s just a holdover from someone who switched from Windows to Mac? Who knows.
Regardless, I’m hoping that some analyst starts projecting whether people are going to shell out the $79.99 for Parallels, or not. I’m betting they will, at least a good many of them. If nothing else, they’d be able to run all the millions (or so it seems) of graphical games that are produced only for a Windows enviroment.
I haven’t run across any data projections yet – but I’m looking. If anyone sees one, please toss it my way.
~Nicole
