Following the availability of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006 for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003, and together with Vista in November 2006 and January 2007, Microsoft debuted work on the next version of its proprietary browser. But at the same time, the Redmond company remained almost completely mute regarding the future of Internet Explorer. In early 2007, due to the scarce details from Microsoft, speculations pointed to both a 7.5 version and a 8.0. version, this is in fact being one of the issues that have been clarified at this point. The Redmond company will evolve Internet Explorer directly to version 8, and there will be no major interim updates. Early builds of IE8 are being dogfooded, but outside of Redmond, the browser version is as well as inexistent. Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager, confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 would succeed IE7 and that the browser was in the works, after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates mentioned it first.
"Just as he was the first to talk about IE7, Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at the Mix 'n Mash event here on campus
yesterday. Bill was talking to some bloggers about IE.Next and called it IE8, the same way we do here in the IE team hallway. So, yes, the version after IE7 is IE8. We looked at a lot of options for the product name. Among the names we considered and ruled out: IE 7 1; IE VIII; IE 1000 (think binary); IE Eight!; iIE; IE for Web 2.0 (Service Pack 2); IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (the marketing team really pushed for this one ;-) and Ie2.079 (we might still use this for the Math Major Edition)," Hachamovitch revealed.
Gates apparently had no idea of the secrecy surrounding Internet Explorer 8. "I'll have to ask Dean (Hachamovitch) what the hell is going on. I mean, we're not -- there's not like some deep secret about what we're doing with IE," he stated, as cited from a transcript of the meeting offered by LiveSide. "And so I don't know where Dean is in terms of if he's willing to commit what's in IE 8 and what's not in IE 8. In terms of standards support, he'll see that it's a glass half full. It adds a bunch of new stuff we didn't have before, it doesn't add everything that everybody wants us to do."
But still, at this point in time, all that Microsoft talked about was the fact that IE8 would succeed IE7. And nothing else. The company revealed after the release of IE7 that future versions of the browser would follow in no more than two tear time frames. In this context, IE8 will not drop any sooner than the end of 2008 or even early 2009. In the meantime, Mozilla has reached Beta 1 stage with Firefox 3.0 and is moving ahead into Beta 2 by the end of this month. In comparison, Microsoft is still not ready to breath any additional details about IE8.
"Of course, some people care about other aspects of IE8 much more than they care about the name. As I've walked different people through the plan, I've gotten "Does it have feature X?" "When is the beta?" "When does it release" and even the more thoughtful "What are you trying to accomplish with this release?" You will hear a lot more from us soon. In the meantime, please don't mistake silence for inaction," Hachamovitch promised.
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