[mhurron]

> I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s.

Backwards compatibility is not the same as forwards compatibility, you seem to be confusing them.

You expect an application like Excel to open something made before by an earlier version. MS knows how to handle that format. However, you do not expect Excel 95 to open a xlsx file, it was a format that did not exist when Excel 95 was created.

[LekkoscPiwa]

I think that you are confusing backwards/forwards compatibility with the point the OP seemed to be making: Microsoft never bothered to follow the web standards.

[magic_haze]

Agreed, but... the standards themselves have changed since 1999.

[LekkoscPiwa]

Yeah, it seems Microsoft always has had good excuses. I wonder if other browsers from that period would have as poor results as IE5 does. I seriously doubt it.

[yuhong]

Well the main competitor was Netscape 4, which was even worse.

[LekkoscPiwa]

What exactly was worse in Netscape? Because I just loved using it.

[yuhong]

It's extremely bad and buggy CSS support, which was even worse than even IE4, let along IE5.