Never Letting Go

Peter Bright, writing for Ars Technica on the integration of Flash into Windows 8:

Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 will include a bundled, integrated version of Adobe Flash, and the Metro-style browser will support the use of Flash on a limited number of sites. This news and corroborating screenshots comes from Within Windows and winunleaked.tk.

In Windows 8, Microsoft’s browser will come in two guises. There will be the traditional desktop browser, with its full support of plug-ins and extensions, and there will be the new Metro-style browser that will be plug-in free. But that’s not quite the whole story. The browser will include an integrated and embedded version of Adobe Flash, and because this will be built-in, it won’t be treated as a plug-in.

The result? Even the Metro-style browser will be able to use Flash.

Microsoft has a hard time letting go of the past, don’t they? Even when it’s with a technology they tried replacing with Silverlight.
Years ago, you could argue Microsoft’s legacy support was one of its strengths – even in 2012 you can open a Microsoft Word doc created in 2002, but each year they don’t cut ties with the past is another year they aren’t able to innovate to their full potential.
Just look at Windows 8 – you’re in Metro-mode most of the time, but every now and then classic Windows rears its head.
Apple did this with it’s operating system too, but not only did they do it better by sandboxing it, but they did it 10 years ago.