Not that I have any insight into Microsoft but it appears to be consistent with their strategy of disengaging from the client. Why bear the cost of maintaining your own browser technology given the extraordinary complexity, a low market share and little to no associated revenues.
I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working.
Ah, I can see you weren't around during the days of IE6, when the web stagnated and suffered under Microsoft's stranglehold and ineptitude.
Keep in mind that, for quite a few years, developers welcomed the oncoming Microsoft browser monopoly; IE3/IE4/IE5 were generally better and faster than their Netscape counterparts and Opera was so niche as to be irrelevant. Then Netscape (the for-profit enterprise) folded and there was no viable competition to IE for a while, and the broken mess known as IE6 became a serious problem for years since it had something like 98% market share.
Trusting any company, even Google, to be the de facto sole steward of the web is insane. They are a for-profit company. That may not make them intrinsically evil, but they sure as hell aren't intrinsically good.
> I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working.
That would be a terrible day for the open web. Damn it, somebody inject some IE6 into these people stat.
I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working.