Microsoft Forgets to Innovate With IE8

Tech giant Microsoft admitted Friday that they had “dropped the ball” by forgetting to assign a team of developers to work on their upcoming Internet Explorer 8 web browser, blaming the oversight on mid-level management.

“I know it sounds far-fetched, but please try and remember we also made up Windows Genuine Advantage,” said company spokesman Jen Parbly, “We didn’t realize those three floors were unoccupied until Bill [Gates] asked what the hell was going on with the IE team.  For a few days, we were convinced we just kept checking in when they were at lunch.”

According to sources inside the company, after the release of Internet Explorer 7, a decision was made at an executive level to “start from scratch” to come up with a brand new approach to web browsing, including “taking a long, hard look at these things they call ’standards’.”   Unfortunately, the task of assigning developers to begin brainstorming was lost in the shuffle when it was discovered customers had realized Vista was really Windows 3.1 with added transparency.

To make matters worse, sources indicate IE Project Manager Marcel Duplessis had unknowingly switched to Firefox several months before, and believed “perfection had been achieved, so they might as well take a break”.  It was at his recommendation that the web browser team was assigned to other projects like the Zune, which analysts say “explains everything”.

At a press conference in Redmond Friday, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates pledged more transparency on the IE project in the future.

“We’re working hard to make it easier for you to see what we’re doing inside the company,” he said to a room full of tech reporters and programmers.  “We realize we can’t force thousands of companies around the world to update their entire websites to meet our crazy new code quirks if we don’t have half-competent monkeys learning what kinds of things you really can’t afford to have broken.  We haven’t done a great job recently, but we really do want to embrace you all.  Embrace and extend.  And then smother.”