A small peek at Internet Explorer 8
Microsoft got complacent and let Internet Explorer 6 stagnate for a few years. Finally, prodding from competition by Firefox woke Redmond up. We got Internet Explorer 7 and a promise of more frequent updates. Mary Jo Foley reports on a few hints about the next version that Microsoft gave at a recent conference:
Microsoft still isn’t talking specifics in terms of what it plans to deliver as part of the next version of Internet Explorer, IE 8.0. But at the Mix ‘07 conference in Las Vegas, Chris Wilson, platform architect of Internet Explorer, did share some general directions the team is taking with its next release.
One area that was mentioned is standards, an area where Microsoft has often gone its own way:
Wilson said to expect Microsoft to be investing across layout, object model and Ajax development fronts in IE 8.0. Specificially, Wilson said Microsoft is investing in making IE 8.0 more compliant with CSS 2.1 layout standards. Microsoft also is working to make the IE 8.0 object model more interoperable with that used by other browsers, and is looking to provide more client-side application programming interfaces (APIs) to support local storage for mash-ups, Wilson said.
Microsoft is planning to make tweaks to IE that will allow developers to more easily add extensions to its browser, Wilson said. He said Microsoft acknowledged that extensions are powerful but potentially “scary.”
He also said to expect Microsoft to continue to invest heavily in advancing its Web development toolbar with the next version of IE.
The general timeframe for the release of IE 8 seems to be some time in 2008. Will it run on Windows XP or only on Vista? Only Microsoft knows.
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