I think you're being unfair. You act as though they aren't implementing any standards instead of just the ones that make a difference. At the end of the day, websockets is a mess and shouldn't (and isn't) be enabled in any web browser yet. But a whole bunch of other things are. Check the compatibility list: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx. They actually have pretty solid support for most of the upcoming standards and are playing a significant role in the W3C process itself.