There was an interesting article over at TG Daily recently, titled, “Browser wars: When will the madness end?” As you can likely guess from the title, the author assumes that the cage match currently underway between Safari, Google’s Chrome, Firefox, and IE is a bad thing. But aren’t we taught that competition is a good thing? In this case, competition is good—vital, even, if the Internet is to keep growing.

Could Steve Ballmer get any more confusing? He laments the lack of openness in the iPhone OS and Google’s Android, will swear up one side and down the other that proprietary walled gardens are better, but then publicly contemplates an open future for Microsoft’s flagship browser! At the Power to Developer’s conference in Sydney, Australia, Ballmer was conducting a Q & A session with the audience, when a student in the audience posed this rather interesting question:

“Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?”

Ballmer’s response, though rambling, began with typical corporate stall tactics: “That’s cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky.” Ballmer continued…