Office 2010 Pro Plus Internal Microsoft IE 8 build

A week right after Opera Software filed an antitrust fit versus Microsoft that focused, in part, on Microsoft;s falure to create Net Explorer (IE) standards-compliant, Microsoft has gone on record stating IE 8 will consist of support for key Web requirements.
Microsoft verified last week that an internal test construct of IE 8 passed the Acid2 Browser Test, based on Dean Hachamovitch, Basic Supervisor of IE Advancement. Hachamovitch noted the milestone inside a blog publish towards the IE Crew weblog on December 19. Microsoft also posted a video clip to its Channel 9 Internet site explaining the finer points for developers thinking about the Acid2 details.
Acid2 is often a check web page, maintained through the independent Internet Requirements Project group,Office 2010 Product Key, which was composed to assist browser vendors make sure assistance for Internet requirements in their goods.
“I;m delighted to tell you that on Wednesday, December 12,Windows 7 Keygen, World-wide-web Explorer correctly rendered the Acid2 page in IE8 standards mode,” Hachamovitch blogged. “While supporting the features tested in Acid2 is significant for many reasons,Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, it is just one of several milestones for the interoperability, standards compliance, and backwards compatibility that we;re committed to for this release.”
In a phone interview on December 19, Hachamovitch also said that Microsoft will release a public beta create of IE 8 some time in the first half of 2008.
Hachamovitch denied that Microsoft;s decision to disclose this week IE eight;s planned requirements compliance was related to Opera;s antitrust suit launched final week. Hachamovitch said Microsoft has been working on making IE 8 Acid2-compliant since IE 8 planning began.
(Note: I have asked Opera to comment on how Microsoft;s news on IE 8 and Acid2 will affect their antitrust complaint filed with the European Commission. Stay tuned for more. Here is the Opera response.)
The beta timing and Acid2 compliance were the only two news nuggets that Hachamovitch was willing to discuss with me around IE eight. I asked him when Microsoft is planning to ship the final IE eight release; what other features IE eight will incorporate; whether IE 8 will work with XP or be Vista only; whether Microsoft plans to create non-public test builds of IE eight available to select testers outside of Microsoft in early 2008; and whether Silverlight, Microsoft;s Flash-like player that is currently a browser add-on will be bundled with the final IE 8 release. Hachamovitch declined to comment on any of these things.
In the IE Weblog posting, Hachamovitch said: “We;ll cover more details of the non-developer oriented work (e.g. user experience, reliability, security, etc.) in other posts inside the future, following MIX.”
Mix ‘08 is slated for early March 2008. At Mix 07, Microsoft provided some general guidance on its future IE plans but has offered no new particulars since then.
In the IE blog posting,Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2010, Hachamovitch reiterated the Windows client chief Steven Sinofsky;s line that Microsoft is dialing back on transparency for the good of the customer:
“For IE8, we want to communicate facts, not aspirations. We;re posting this information now because we have real working code checked in and we;re confident about delivering it within the ultimate product. We;re listening to the feedback about IE, and at the same time,Office 2010 Pro Plus, we are committed to responsible disclosure and setting expectations properly. Now that we;ve run the check on multiple machines and seen it work, we;re excited to be able to share definitive information.”
Microsoft;s IE crew has been baraged by critics who have been unhappy with Microsoft;s failure to provide IE eight timing and feature guidance. The team also has been roundly chastized for years — and not just by Opera — for its slowness in making IE compliant with the latest iterations of normal Web standards, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), DHTML an document object model (DOM).
Web developers: What do you think about the IE 8 team;s latest disclosures? What else do you want/need to hear sooner rather than later about Microsoft;s future browser plans?