The news that Microsoft is effectively positioning Project Spartan as its new primary web browser may seem to throw a wrench in the plans of companies that rely on Internet Explorer. However, there are a few things worth remembering: first of all, Explorer will not disappear entirely and could still be a match for businesses depending on their general systems architecture. Legacy application modernization that uses web spaces for access could therefore still be relevant for habitual Explorer users.
One of the newer details revealed about Internet Explorer 11, the version accompanying the launch of Microsoft 10, is that it will not be using the same engine as Spartan. In an official Microsoft post, Kyle Pflug, Project Spartan's Program Manager, said that the newer Explorer will be "fundamentally unchanged" from the version used in Windows 8.1. The article does confirm that the new engine, called Edge, will be for Spartan alone, and offered some reasons for this that pertain to creating a comprehensive enterprise.
"For Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 to be an effective solution for legacy scenarios and enterprise customers, it needs to behave consistently with Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1," Pflug writes. "Hosting our new engine in Internet Explorer 11 has compatibility implications that impact this promise and would have made the browser behave differently on Windows 10."
This shows that Microsoft is concerned with how businesses will be able to run important applications across different devices. Organizations undertaking a modernization initiative can still count on a browser emulator solution for a reliable and easy migration from the traditional mainframe to a cloud space where every department and worker can access the same functions equally.