Microsoft is pulling the life support from an iconic 27-year-old product — Internet Explorer, one of the original web browsers.
Version 11 is incompatible with other Microsoft products, like Teams, a workplace chat software, and the 365 apps, according to CNN. This news comes after the company made the decision to phase out Internet Explorer from products.
Apart from the clashing products, usage for Internet Explorer has also gone down, accounting for less than half a percent of the browser market share, according to StatCounter.
“The web has evolved and so have browsers,” Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, said in the blog post Wednesday. “Incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn’t match the general improvements to the web at large, so we started fresh.”
What is taking Internet Explorer’s place? Microsoft Edge, another Windows browser that was originally launched in 2015. Users will start getting redirected to this new browser every time they open Explorer, the blog stated.
Even though the tech company has been hinting at discontinuing this browser for a while, this news will surprise many users, businesses and government agencies. Japan, for example, has been slow to respond to this change, as Nikkei reported earlier this week.