Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

Cue the dirge for Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s much maligned browser.

Soon the brand will be (mostly) no more.

Microsoft has hinted that Internet Explorer brand was going to be scrapped. Now it’s official.

Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s head of marketing, made the announcement Monday at the Microsoft Convergence conference.

Microsoft is placing its bets on its new and speedier flagship browser codenamed Project Spartan.

Project Spartan will not be associated with the Internet Explorer brand, Capossela said. Microsoft is working on a new name and a new brand for Project Spartan, he said.

“We’re now researching what the new brand or the new name for our browser should be in Windows 10,” Capossela said, according to The Verge. “We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing.”

Not that Internet Explorer branding will vanish entirely. It will still exist in some versions of Windows 10, but Project Spartan will be the main way Windows 10 users roam the Internet.

“Microsoft is making compelling software right now, software as good as Google and Apple. But they still have a perception of lagging and they are trying to break that perception and that includes retiring brands,” said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

It’s the end of an era for Internet Explorer which launched nearly two decades ago.

:story: USA Today