Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates confirmed, at the company's Tech Ed North America 2008 Developers conference on June 3, that the next development milestone of Internet Explorer 8 is approximately a couple of months away. IE8 Beta 2 will be made available for download in August 2008, and will take Microsoft's next iteration of the IE browser one step closer to the general release. Gates' announcement is the first clear indication from the Redmond company as to the future development timetable of Internet Explorer 8.

In the first half of May, Microsoft refused to discuss any details related to the next beta build, or the final version of IE8, indicating that nothing had been set in stone. It was only at the end of the past month that Nick MacKechnie, Senior Technical Account Manager at Microsoft New Zealand, revealed that IE8 Beta 2 is scheduled for the third quarter of 2008, immediately following the launch of IE8 Beta 1. Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager, pointed to the summer of this year as a potential release date for the nest development milestone.

Now, Gates has merely narrowed it down even more, pointing only to August. Microsoft has made no additional details public about IE8 Beta 2 with the exception of the fact that the browser would be delivered in no less than 20 languages. IE8 Beta 2 is planned to be a release aimed at end users, as Beta 1 was a developer-centric build. In this regard, users should expect a richer feature set in IE8 Beta 2, compared to what Beta 1 brought to the table.

"Internet Explorer 8 is the next version of Microsoft's popular browser, and in beta 1 it delivers significantly improved standards support and developer platform investments with enhanced user experiences. Beta 1 for Internet Explorer 8 is currently available and is focused on Web developers and designers to help them deliver Web experiences that go beyond the page for consumers," Microsoft stated.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is available for download via this link.