Save the Developers Lost to Microsoft?

Save the Developers was a site dedicated to educating Web surfers about the tremendous failings of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browsers. The site sported a free “badge” for Web developers and webmasters to include on websites to spread the word. “The word” being that Internet Explorer versions prior to 8 ignore all standards for HTML and CSS (the markup used by Web developers to create webpages). Ultimately, users were pleaded with to upgrade  to version 8 beta; at least leave version 6 behind and move on to version 7.

So, why all the past-tense in my explanation above? Well, the Save the Developers website (savethedevelopers.org) now redirects to Microsoft’s website for Internet Explorer 7 and 8 beta. At first, one might assume that Microsoft bought the domain for the website and issued the redirect themselves. However, I’m not so sure about that upon some digging.

A whois query for microsoft.com reveals that the owner of that domain is Microsoft Corporation; no surprise there. However, a whois for savethedevelopers.org (and .com) shows the owner to be Conveyor Group. There is only a month left before the domains expire, so who knows. Maybe they succumbed to the financial power of Microsoft.