Microsoft sends an IE9 cupcake to Mozilla for shipping Firefox 7

By Tom Warren, on 27th Sep 11 7:45 pm with 42 Comments

Microsoft sent Mozilla a congratulatory cupcake on Tuesday for shipping Firefox 7.

The software giant continued its tradition of sending cakes to Mozilla by shipping an Internet Explorer 9 cupcake. Mozilla shipped Firefox 3 in 2008 and the Internet Explorer team sent a cake, Microsoft also sent a cake to Mozilla in March after they shipped Firefox 4. Microsoft then shipped a smaller cupcake to Mozilla in June after the company shipped Firefox 5. Microsoft’s tradition of cupcakes also saw the company ship Mozilla a small cupcake in August when Firefox 6 launched.

Internet Explorer 9 was released to the web on Monday March 14 and clocked up 27 downloads per second, over 250 downloads every 10 seconds. Microsoft claims it reached 2.3 million Internet Explorer 9 downloads in just 24 hours. Mozilla breezed past Microsoft’s download stats with Firefox 5 and 6 thanks to its support for Windows XP and other operating systems, it remains to be seen how well Firefox 7 will fare. Microsoft is currently working on Internet Explorer 10. The company unveiled a Platform Preview 3 version of Internet Explorer 10 as part of the company’s Windows 8 Developer Preview build. Microsoft’s Windows 8 browser improvements include a separate Metro style browser for use in the company’s new user interface. Internet Explorer 10 includes the following:

  • Performance. Metro style IE has the same industry-leading performance as IE on the desktop. This includes full hardware acceleration of graphics, video, and audio, compiled JavaScript, and new layout and formatting engine optimizations for touch responsiveness.
  • Safety. Metro style IE also has the same industry-leading security, privacy, and reliability features as IE on the desktop. This includes SmartScreen, XSS filtering, and InPrivate browsing.
  • HTML5. Metro style IE delivers the same commitment to a richer HTML5 web programming model as IE on the desktop. At BUILD, we introduce new support for CSS Text Shadow, CSS 3D Transforms, IndexedDB, Web Sockets, HTML5 File APIs, HTML5 History, hyphenation, CSS Transitions and Animations, and HTML5 Application Cache, in addition to the other new features previously shown in IE10 Platform Previews.

IE9 cupcake for Mozilla Firefox 7

Image Credit: Internet Explorer team @ie

  • http://twitter.com/Koki_v3 Koki_v3

    Again? :D
    Microsoft is awesome.

  • http://www.Nave360.com Sebastian Gorgon

    Microsoft will go bankrupt if Mozilla “ship” this many versions 

  • Anonymous

    They’re going to run out of cupcakes at the rate FF is updating. :S

    • Anonymous

      They are just going to get smaller and smaller until there is but a crumb sized one. Perhaps the Firefox team should slow down the updates and make them more substantial so they get bigger cakes.

    • Anonymous

      Big yearly update = Big cake,     Small continous updates = Cupcakes for you.  Hopefully they  don’t update faster or they will just get a picture of a cupcake instead.

  • http://twitter.com/ParkerReno Parker Ciambrone

    The reason Mozilla is shipping more often is because they want that yummy MS cake, but we noticed, now they only get cupcakes, no more full sized cakes for you!

  • Anonymous

    I think MSFT can afford lots of cupcakes. Lots.

  • http://www.facebook.com/said.sikira Said X Sikira

    I really don’t like shipping of new versions of firefox every month

    • Test1ngi23

      Is it because restarting your browser once a month is too inconvenient for you?

    • http://twitter.com/ParkerReno Parker Ciambrone

      Well for security/ IT departments it is a pain because the have to deploy updates so quickly by the time the product is tested and patched to their requirements, a new version is out.

    • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

      And because addons are also not being updated fast enough to keep up with that pace.  A patch? Fine.  A new version entirely? Sheesh!

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_SQROOWZBPDYOKRHWK2M6JDZELE TruthRevealed

      Wow, and your an ass. So who’s better off?

  • Johnwr29938

    Haha, every “MSFT sends a cupcake” article has the same reactions/jokes ><

    1) This is the reason why Firefox speeded up their release cycle, to get more cake
    2) MSFT can't afford to send all the cakes
    3) etc

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      MSFT sent me a mail saying that Firefox 7 is lean so they must be on a diet ;)

    • Anonymous

      MSFT can’t afford the Apple iCakes.

    • Brand Watson

      lame joke of the year!=P

    • Syrious

      because the iCing is too damn expensive. there – I just made your lame joke even worse.

  • Anonymous

    Hopefully the cupcakes keep getting smaller and smaller. Despite the major version number getting bumped up, the so-called Firefox releases seem very insignificant. Does Firefox just want a version number that’s higher than IE10?

    • Anonymous

      I’m on the Aurora channel anyways. I like living on the edge..

    • Guest

      Which one of you?

  • http://www.searingarrow.com AlienSix

    I wanna know whats in that cupcake

  • Anonymous

    I wonder if they ever eat the cupcakes. I know I’d fight everyone for a cupcake… damn they’re good. 

  • Am

    the cakes are getting smaller, Microsoft is making budget cuts everywhere ;)

    • Anonymous

      If Apple did the cakes, they would be insanely great and market-changing.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/6G3ZZJCHOLYP3S5CRCIHQ7WDSE MVIM

      And they would cost about $150.

    • Guest

      Nah. They just steal the recipe off a mix, grab icing from someone else but only make it in white, cut the portion size in half, remove the wrapper and tell you it’s more tactile, charge twice as much, and market is as magical.

    • Anonymous

      The cakes with white icing have been delayed due to the manufacturing process not producing the right shade.

    • Seb

      “the cakes are getting smaller”… just like the interest in each new Firefox release.

    • Anonymous

      I use to give every new version of Firefox a try.  But when 5 came out a few weeks after 4, I decided to stop bothering.  I honestly do not like the new update schedule.  I prefer one or two big updates every year at most.  Gives you a chance to get use to the old version and build up hype for something new.

    • Anonymous

      me too, i have the 5 installed i dont actually use, i use IE9 as my main browser
      Te changes are not sifnificant
      if you have firefox 4, 5, 6, 7 you wouldnt know the difference at first unless you check

  • http://profiles.google.com/elmsoftware John Lueders

    march, june, august, and now september.  that is too tight a schedule to have a version change.  the differences in the builds can not be that significant…i am sure each new release is an improvement and better uses html 5…but it is too close for Microsoft to send their cakes…they should send a little Debbie cake roll or something.

  • phil jay

    I’d say IE9 still starts up faster.. ;)

  • Ronit Kumar

    http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-firefox-7-chrome-14-internet-explorer-9-and-more

    Opera wins hands-down.
    I wonder why Opera is always the unsung hero?

    • Guest

      that article are bias.. they just test things that IE are not good at.. how bout HTML5?? they are too afraid to touch it??

    • Yahoo

      IE9 doesnt even support the animatiosn on this site, so I doubt they’re scared about html5

  • Anonymous

    I don’t mind the faster update cycle for FF, it gets more features in peoples hands faster and that’s good.  I just don’t like them making full version (x.0) iterations for each one.  Seems hollow doing that.

  • Anonymous

    wow but lets get to the point: FF marketshare isn’t going anywhere even with this high cadence releases. chrome has all but halted it and it seems mozilla just can’t keep up with google as the IE alternative. maybe they should just concentrate on different products than the doomed to fail browser battle. how about putting all that energy into thunderbird. with gmail’s web client being the definition of suck, somebody should produce a true thin and light native platform mail client that blows past the limitations of the browser based email solutions (shouldn’t be too hard given all suck).

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-Kacerek/100002282390634 Richard Kacerek

    Is it just me or are the cakes from Microsoft getting smaller?

    • Anonymous

      is it just me, or are the ff-shipments becoming more frequent? :- )

  • http://twitter.com/OldCongress Gamer

    Noticed why Mozilla kept increasing their version number? They want more cupcakes from Microsoft!

  • Morgan

    Im starting to think that the new versions of FF are what other companies call “patches”.

  • Tony Johnson

    Chrome! ‘Nuff saif