Say, remember when were musing that Microsoft might be looking to drop Internet Explorer for the Mac? Well, faithful viewer Sledgehammer Smythe tells us that it just happened. Since we suspect that some of you wouldn't just take some guy's word for it (Sledgehammer, man, they're dissing your credibility! Attack! ATTACK!!), we made the extra effort to dig up confirmation in the form of a MacUser UK article, which reports that "Roz Ho, the general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, has confirmed that no future versions of Internet Explorer will be released for the Mac."

Now, this revelation may well give you the heebie-jeebies, since it's a sign that things aren't necessarily as peachy-keen between Apple and Microsoft as the two companies had previously insisted. We witnessed widespread hand-wringing among the Mac faithful last year when Microsoft's 1997 "Don't Sue Us And We'll Buy A Wad Of Your Stock And Promise To Keep Developing Office For Your Platform For Five More Years" agreement with Apple was set to expire-- hand-wringing that was only partially assuaged by assurances from both sides that such a contract was no longer necessary. Quoth Phil Schiller at the time: "It's not an issue today... They have shown us in many ways their commitment to the Mac." "Our business is absolutely continuing," said then-head of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit Kevin Browne, as he "pledged Microsoft's intent to continue developing Mac versions of Office and IE."

Of course, that was fourteen months ago, so it's not terribly surprising that Microsoft has bailed on that so-called "pledged intent," at least as far as IE is concerned. (In our book, a Microsoft promise isn't worth squat unless it's in writing-- and even if it is in writing, it's probably written on toilet paper.) Of course, things are different now, since Apple has Safari, which, in our experience, is eleventy-seven times better than IE in every way, shape, and form, provided you aren't visiting a web site that's so assimilated into the MicroBorg way of life that it tells non-IE browsers to get bent. The question, however, is this: is Microsoft dropping IE because Apple developed Safari, as Ms. Ho claims? Or did Apple develop Safari because it knew that Microsoft was dropping IE?

Either way, we doubt that many Mac users will bemoan the lack of future IE updates now that Safari's around and improving fast-- and even if you somehow really do prefer IE to Safari, don't worry about losing the use of your favorite browser; Microsoft says it will support the existing version of IE "for the foreseeable future." (What you should worry about, however, is your appalling lack of taste.) But if Microsoft is dropping development of IE, doesn't that imply that its "pledged intent" to keep developing Office may also be just so much hot air? Not that we, personally, would miss Office either, but that product leaving the platform really could cause some problems. Assuming, of course, that Apple doesn't have a professional office suite of its own in the works-- something a little more businesslike than AppleWorks...