Google and several other leading technology companies are trying to kill IE6 before any more users (and site/application designers) suffer. The main way these companies (plus the many individuals) will encourage businesses of both large and small to upgrade is quite simple: stop supporting the outdated browser, rendering online office apps unusable or lacking certain new features.

If stats are correct, anywhere from 11-14%, up to 21% of all Internet Users are still browsing the web with IE6. Generally, these are users in corporate and business settings, where the process of rolling out an update to IE7 or IE8 was skipped due to cost and compatibility issues. While the update is free, development on new programs to be compatible with the browser, including the support staff/development team costs can reach into the millions. Therefore, like Windows XP, these businesses will try to hang onto the version (as it works “perfectly fine”) for as long as possible.

A post from Google recently offers a brief explanation behind the lack of support for IE6, as well as their direction for the future. Beginning March 1st, Google Docs and Sites features may not work properly in other browsers. Rather than gently phasing out support of IE6, they are going with the approach of “we’re dropping compatibility (rather than support), so you must upgrade.”

IE7+, Firefox 3.0+, Chrome 4.0+, and Safari 3.0+ are the currently supported browsers of most sites around the web, although it might be better at this point if everyone moved away from Internet Explorer altogether. At the current rate of adoption and support timeframe, we’ll be dealing with a similar situation with IE7 in five years’ time. Microsoft will continue to support IE6 until 2014, 13 years after release. At the time of this writing, Internet Explorer 6 is still the most popular version of Internet Explorer, making up 20.99% of all browsers. Internet Explorer 8 comes in at 20.86% of all browsers, and 36.27% of Internet Explorer browsers. This information is according to Net Applications.

Should businesses skip Vista (and many are) and go directly to Internet Explorer 8, or switch operating systems/browsers altogether, the web may be given the opportunity to evolve at a faster rate. Flash may also be less prevalent in five to ten years’ time if enough websites stop using it.

The ultimate question is this: will businesses listen to a company that is ultimately trying to cause a huge disruption in the industry? Not likely. If the web apps built by many companies has been tested to be compatible with IE6 only, and they don’t see the benefits in the cost of upgrading to Windows 7 and IE8, why should they upgrade? Many companies refuse software updates for these reasons alone, and simply blocking access from web search, online office suites, and YouTube won’t necessarily persuade companies to upgrade.