I wonder if that was due to any pressure from various groups (including most notably the EU) trying to force Windows and Internet Explorer to be produced by seperate companies? I'm sure I read something ages back about that legal case that MS had to pay out some big bucks for...

Not really... Microsoft at that time was taking the position that they didn't do anything wrong and if found to be in conflict would just pay the fine and continue as if nothing had happened. A much bigger factor was the demise of the one notable competitor (Netscape). Another problem was the architectural decision to share the rendering engine between the browser and the application platform, meaning that they couldn't update the engine without breaking a few applications. Right now Microsoft is trying to reverse that decision (although they would of course never admit it) by including InternetExplorer 6, 7 and 8 engines with InternetExplorer 8 and placing applications into "compatibility mode", meaning that they won't run MSIE8's rendering engine, but rather 6 or 7 while web sites use the MSIE8 engine by default. While this is in my opinion a good decision, there are a few problems, most notably: what will happen after MSIE8? Since Microsoft has failed to provide a good update path from 6 to 7, many companies still stick with 6. And because they've gotten used to skipping updates, I doubt that they will update to 8 very fast, even if it would probably work. Which means that web developers will most likely continue to code for MSIE 6 or 7 and force 8 into compatibility mode, giving Microsoft a way of saying "look, we tried to do things right, but nobody was interested".

Ah, the sort of question I have no answer for (or I guess I would be one of the guys making millions...).
I take it you have experience in this area? my knowledge is sketchy at best - which I would guess you'd picked up on already!

Experience with MSIE bugs... yes, definitely. And a few scars from when I banged my head against the nearest wall to prove it.
Seriously though, I've been working with web browsers since the mid nineties and have seen a lot of developments taking place. And I can forgive quite a lot. There are always conflicts between internal requirements and specifications, or new developments that have not been properly standardized yet. And there are of course simple bugs that just happen.
What I really can't forgive is Microsoft labeling every major bug as a feature and the notion that keeping Microsoft's support costs low by never changing anything is better than making even tiny changes (PNG transparency comes to mind) that would lower the costs for web development dramatically.

I'm not very knowledgable on web design and coding, but I know enough to get it very clean and compatible.
At one of the places where I work, there are a few PCs stuck on IE5/5.5 (We can't upgrade it, head office policy and it may break something). Any web work done at this place must scale back that far and keep it in the dark ages. It's going to take a while to get rid of the machines, but for the moment, just about every site I open is unusable.

Couldn't you persuade them to do what Microsoft should have done and just separate between web and applications/intranet, You know, MSIE for internal stuff, Firefox for the rest? It's what I try to do whenever I encounter said scenario. It isn't much, but it's nice to know I made the world a tiny bit better.
Edit: I'm definitely more knowledgeable when it comes to web development than when it comes to IT infrastructure.

I've tried. But most of the staff complain when they have to re-learn anything. Even as simple tasks as Web Browsing.
Firefox has been made available. But only myself and one other person uses it. This is probably the hardest thing to do in ICT, not only to get people to accept new or alternative programs, but be willing to use and learn it. I have offered to supply training, all it would take is 15-30 minutes for Fx.

Convince them that a day of training would increase efficiency and provide the image of a forward looking company, if you spin it right, you could get a 3 month project out if it. Well unless you work for telstra, then they'd probably demand mosaic...

Nah, it's a badly under funded public primary school. I'm there 4 hours a week, and only really work 3 of them. (Other locations, no trouble).
This completely changes the aims and what is expected to other places I've worked at. A bunch of legacy stuff keeps us on old IE versions, but this should be solved soon. As I've been told the last 3 years...
The contract work I had for a construction company in Adelaide would of jumped at the chance.

OHHHH the department of education! I'm surprised you're not still using windows 3.1

I'm undermining the process from within :) Mother is a teacher and I've trained her to use and request Firefox and suddenly her whole school is using it.

Haha!, er, Well...
When I started at this place, the first day I was there (about 3 years ago) I dumped the two old 386 computers running Win 3.1. (No, I'm not joking). I keep finding stashes of old manuals and disks around the place that make me feel old.
At the High School I also work at, getting people to try alternatives like Firefox, OpenOffice other stuff has worked rather well. A few even picked up K/Ubuntu to use at home.
But, we have a much higher budget there, and a greater staff focus on keeping up with software.

Yeah well we had some windows 2000 server machines for TAFE that got upgraded quick smart after I got involved. We also tried to test a dualboot of server 2008 but the guy who installed it was from the "why write things down? Just keep clicking 'next'!" school of thought and subsequently broke our SUSE production server...
Maybe you could take a liveCD of SUSE or Ubuntu in and see if it'll run what they need

It's a nice idea. The secondary student network allows me to mess around and experiment in, but not the staff/admin one.
Unfortunately, everything is locked down and set by the head office (Our in building servers are mainly used for accounts and file storage). We are limited to what we can alter on both the PCs and the server.
Hell, we're stuck with Access97 because of our one main program. And any part of Office2007 (even non access parts) stops it from working.
Something is soon going to break, and chaos will erupt.

Yup, my uni and my job network office, both of whom brag about their technological skill, are both unable to open word 2007 documents when it's not only 2 1/2 years old now but there's also free document converters...
Still my job network office uses a belkin home router for their internet access, they've probably got a BNC & coax ring network out the back...