Google is not slacking on web standards.
That sentence isn't specific enough. Google is a huge company with many products and services, some of which are W3C standards-compliant and some of which (likely intentionally) violate those same standards.
I won't go into all the details again here. I will just say that Google's and Apple's treatment of internet standards often amounts to the misuse of monopoly power. In the 1990's Microsoft went to court for similar behavior and was forced to clean up their act. Apparently, the same standards don't apply today. More on this can be found
here .
Google is certainly slacking on web standards. It doesn't support Windows browsers properly.
just a small clarification... neither Google nor any other company should be required to explicitly support Windows browsers. They should only be required to abide by internet standards. If websites are standards-compliant, any browser will be able to display the websites content correctly, including IE10, which is one of the best browsers in terms of standards-compliance.
How does Microsoft give a user choice if it does not allow any browser other than IE on Windows Phone?
Microsoft isn't giving you a choice of internet browsers, but even if they wanted too, they just can't afford it. Let me explain:
Mobile Safari and Mobile Chrome are both based on WebKit, and together they are responsible for 95+% of all mobile internet traffic. They are very close to making all other browsers (Firefox, Opera, IE) irrelevant on the mobile web. If Google and Apple were to respect the W3C standardization process this wouldn't be a problem, but as it is now Google and Apple are obviously more interested in running a mobile web dictatorship. The W3C (the organization behind most internet standards) would continue to exist, but would basically adopt anything Apple and Google implement in WebKit as the official standard. As Apple and Google both directly compete with Microsoft, surrendering all control over the mobile web would deal a very strong blow to Microsoft's future ability to compete effectively. The only way to prevent this is by drastically increasing mobile IE's market share on the mobile web. The market share must be large enough to persuade Google, that they can no longer afford to offer a sub-par experience to that many people without noticeably hurting their advertising revenues. IE on WP isn't just Microsoft's last hope of preventing this dictatorship, but also Mozilla's and Opera's.
Theoretically, Microsoft shouldn't mind too much if IE on WP8 is replaced with Firefox or Opera. Although they would prefer you used IE, giving you that choice doesn't threaten them. Unfortunately, Microsoft can't legally allow those two browsers while refusing Safari and Chrome. Were Microsoft to allow Chrome on WP8, it would amount to Microsoft waving the white flag, and we could all attend IE's funeral shortly thereafter.
Basically, all consumers are pawns in Apple's and Google's fight for dominance over the mobile web, and Microsoft's hope of preventing that.
Put yourself in Microsoft's position. Would you allow Safari and/or Chrome on WP8?
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