> IE 6 was abandoned because Microsoft won the browser war.
This has never been adequate to explain how MS treated IE.
Microsoft also won the desktop decisively, arguably more decisively than the browser front. And yet far from abandoning windows, it pretty consistently iterated via major releases and service updates, even when competitors were almost rounding errors and when they had a business base that often valued backward compatibility as much or more than anything else.
Microsoft doesn't abandon things just because they achieved dominance.
IE was abandoned because MS of the early 00s still thought most computing would stay on the desktop, in network-aware applications, maybe even using different runtimes, but still desktop apps.
> It's ridiculous to say that in 2006/7 Microsoft thought web was a fad
It's ridiculous of you to choose 2006/2007 when you're responding to a comment that specifies "circa early 00s."
And yes, by 2006/2007, MS realized they'd made a mistake and the web was becoming something that could deliver experiences competitive with desktop apps.
