Late last week, Google announced it will phase out old browser support next month on Google Docs and Google Sites. The search giant also sent out an e-mail to Google Apps administrators to warn them of the date, as well as tell them something it did not disclose publicly last week: Gmail and Calendar are next on the IE6 support kill list. Here's the relevant snippet:

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar. Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

We contacted Google to verify the authenticity of the e-mail. "We plan to stop supporting older browsers for the rest of the Google Apps suite, including Gmail, later in 2010," a Google spokesperson confirmed with Ars. We asked whether phasing out the support for older browsers on Gmail and Google Calendar would affect everyone, and not just Google Apps that companies have deployed. "Correct, both enterprise and consumer users," the spokesperson told us.

IE6 started off 2010 with about one-fifth of the browser market share. Actually, if we add all browser versions below IE7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0, it's clear that at least one in four users are using browsers that Google plans to stop supporting. There's no telling if this number is the same for those who access Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, or Google Sites; we asked, but Google refused to provide data from its end. The company has been using Gmail to convert IE6 users to Chrome for over a year, but later this year it's going to deal another blow to the ancient browser, moving it that much closer to its well-deserved demise.