ComputerWorld has reported that Bill Gates is putting "IE at the core of Microsoft's next-generation Web plan." Apparently Gates feels that Microsoft missed the boat on the Web 2.0 thing and now he wants to catch up by using new features in Internet Explorer as a wedge into the world of Web services.

It's gotta make me wonder, though: how many "normal users" out there have had the joy of experiencing the New Web the pundits are so fond of touting? Most folks still appear to be using IE 6, with the second place spot being taken up by Firefox. With IE7 coming down the pike, a lot of the stuff that works with IE6 (and IE5, for that matter) may not work with IE7. The inevitable result of all of this will be a lot of confusion, a lot of redundant testing, and a lot of headaches for the non-techie users out there.

While those of us in the biz pretty much know how to deal with strange browser errors and work-arounds, I'd imagine that the majority of people out there have no idea how to configure their browsers, how to upgrade, and how to fix problems that arise. And even if they do on their own personal machines, chances are that their conservative IT departments are going to lock down their machines until all the security issues are solved and the next dot version comes out.

Overall it comes down to this (totally unverifiable) gut feeling: there's a user gap. The user gap is difficult to identify and difficult to address, but it's there. It's the gap between the early adopters and the folks who can't be bothered, who just want their computers to work and not spend their lives on the bleeding edge. These folks see computers as means to an end, not ends in themselves and don't want to have to think about them anymore than they think about their furnaces, tires, or toaster ovens. The pundits and playahs might keep pushing the edge, but the majority of the world is probably far behind.