The sample of visits is probably too small and misleading. Developers (e.g. you and guys on the team developing the product) tend to use FireFox and now, Chrome, whereas most users will use the stock browser they have by default - IE.
I am running a company in a similar sector (tech related util software), and IE visits are more than 60%. Not to mention, that most corporate users have as a rigid requirement and you are effectively killing a lot of revenue potential.
I run some fairly popular tech focused sites, I have IE running at 15% on the most popular, down to 3% on the least popular.
At the very least the advice is to take your audience into account, and if you are in this particular sector not supporting ie is a doable tradeoff.
if anyone gives an absolute statement that you should support ie, or you shouldnt support ie, unless they understand both the exact demographics you are targeting, and the internal structure of your company as well as the technical details of your product, they are wrong.
This is correct, demographics/industry specifics should be taken into account. What I was trying to say is that we also had something similar (IE stats very low)when we developed our product/service - when you are in Beta, your team and the early adopters are typically more tech savvy and do not use IE.
However, once you launch, IE visitors become the majority - at least in my particular case (in a sector that seems similar to what the blog post says). Even if the purchasing decision makers are not using IE, in my particular case many of the licensed users will be just corporate/normal job types, and IE is the majority there.
I am running a company in a similar sector (tech related util software), and IE visits are more than 60%. Not to mention, that most corporate users have as a rigid requirement and you are effectively killing a lot of revenue potential.
So no - my advice is do not do it, support IE.