News.com:

With its February 12, 2008, Patch Tuesday release, Microsoft has decided, for security reasons, to push out Internet Explorer 7, even to businesses that have previously blocked the automatic upgrade.

According to this Microsoft knowledge base article the software giant will release the Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability update to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) marked as an Update Rollup package. Microsoft says for business customers who have "set WSUS to 'auto-approve' Update Rollup packages (this is not the default configuration), Windows Internet Explorer 7 will be automatically approved for installation." Microsoft introduced the delay feature to give companies a chance to test the browser.

I'm curious how this will impact IE6's user numbers. I've been itching to drop IE6 support since the first day I ever used it and am always looking for an excuse to finally tell clients: "An IE7 upgrade is mandatory since it's been out for two years and you no longer need a valid XP license to download it". I'm aware of all the pros and cons, but I'm wondering what the community thinks of recent developments.

FWIW, I've always been a standards-compliant developer who supports backwards-compatibility, but at this rate, I'm fed up and ready to move on, IE6 (and its many users) be damned. I know it would never happen, but I've always been curious what would happen if the entire development community to simply drop IE6 support altogether.