[nikcub]

IE5 was amazing in corporate environments. I was involved in many projects where we migrated old desktop software or mainframe software to new web based applications.

You could have client-side data sets and manipulate them all in the browser. When a standard HTML control didn't meet your usability requirement you would drop-in an ActiveX control (I did this for better drop-downs and selection boxes that would autocomplete). You had XML parsing (XML finally living up to the hype - a lot of server software supported XML API's). For security you had domain policies and groups as well as client certificates for those on the road.

This was an inflection point in the entire history of the web. For years you would read op-ed pieces about how the web would replace the old computing model, about ASP's (application service providers), about apps on the web, etc. but it simply wasn't possible until IE5.

Further, IE was the only browser where it was possible for a long time. It may be hard to imagine now but in the late 90s and early 2000's most web developers would lean towards 'IE only' and not have to deal with Netscape (which was considered 'broken' at the time - and was going through its own rough patch with the rewrite - Netscape 6/7)

It was a completely new paradigm. Lower development costs, easier rollouts, much lower administration costs. As a plus being a Microsoft developer was a great experience - boatloads of software, seminars, conferences, speaking to real developers from the company on the phone when you needed something.