While Microsoft has recently unveiled the all-singing all-dancing arrival of Internet Explorer 9 at Las Vegas, we at ftopia have made the decision to support IE6. That’s right, Internet Explorer 6, circa 2001! You may have thought that it was dead by now, like some do and some others would like it to be! But bear with us, because there is method in our madness.

When we started the ftopia service we took the decision to support IE7 and onwards, mainly because IE6 lacks many of the advanced capabilities of more modern browsers, and it seemed at the time as though IE6’s share of the browser market was in decline.

Since our primary market is made up of SMB’s and independent professionals, we also assumed they would all be using modern browsers. In general it is only medium and large companies that still use IE6, as the cost of migrating can be prohibitive and they often utilise custom apps that have only been tested on IE6.

However, it seems that we now have a lot more medium-sized businesses than we expected, and even individual departments from large enterprises. For a number of these, Internet Explorer 6 support is a must. We’ve also realised that many smaller businesses share files with larger companies, and in order for them to fully reap the benefits of using ftopia, they must be able to offer account access to all their customers.

For these reasons we will soon be offering support for Internet Explorer 6, and while this perhaps appears to be an unusual move, it may actually give us an advantage, as we will be one of few comparable services to offer this feature.

If you have any views on this decision we would love to hear them. Do you agree that IE6 support will provide greater access, or do you feel that we should be investing more in support for newer browsers such as Android?

We are very happy to be supported by Microsoft through a global program like BizSpark. Being sponsored by Microsoft is recognition of the relevance of our offer and its potential in our market. Moreover, this partnership and the privileged access to the Microsoft sales and technological resources will enable us to accelerate our growth, still preserving our advance.