Google recently announced that it will be halting support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 for Google Docs and Sites. Google's not stopping there, however. Gmail and Google Calendar won't work with IE6 starting later this year.I am a Google Apps admin for my own collection of Web sites. I received an email from Google on February 1 explaining some of the forthcoming changes with respect to support for Internet Explorer 6. The email said:

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

More Internet Insights

White Papers

• The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet's Good Bones - by BlackBerry
• New Visual and Wizard-Driven Paradigms for Exploring Data and Developing Analytic Workflows

More >>

Reports

• How Google+, Facebook Impact Corporate Strategy: Social Media and IT at a Crossroads
• HTML5: Poised to Give “Rich” Rivals a Run for Their Money

More >>

Webcasts

• Maximize ROI with Database Consolidation onto Private Clouds
• Five Jobs You Can Do Better with Intelligent Decision Automation

More >>

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Did you happen to notice that bolded section above? That's the key line. It's one thing for Google to halt support for features used mostly by its business customers. Businesses should know enough to have their employees on the most recent and secure browsers.

Gmail and Google Calendar, however, are used by millions of regular people for their regular lives. Perhaps the vast majority of those people are smart enough to be using newer browsers, but there's no doubt a handful aren't. By taking away support for a vital service -- yes, email is vital to most people -- it will likely have the intended affect of forcing people to upgrade their browsers. Let's hope it works.

Google didn't specify when it will drop support for Gmail and Calendar in IE6.