Microsoft to Support IE10 for 10 Years After Release, Just as Windows 8, Probably

Microsoft is going to support Internet Explorer 10 for as much as a decade, the company revealed as Platform Preview 2 of the browser was released to early adopters for testing.

It appears that IE10 will be intimately connected with Windows 8 not just as the platform’s default browser, but also in terms of support.

“Microsoft will support IE10 for 10 years after its release, honoring the same product lifecycle commitments as Windows itself,” revealed Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer.

This proves that Internet Explorer and Windows are still a pair, even though Microsoft has made it possible for the browser to be disabled, although not completely uninstalled, from the underlying operating system.

According to Hachamovitch, 10 years of support for Internet Explorer 10 are made possible through the company’s approach to productizing Web technologies.

“With Platform Previews, developers and technology enthusiasts can try out new technologies and provide feedback without any confusion about which technologies are site-ready and which are experimental. This approach enables the technical community to work through safety issues before putting any consumers at risk, and minimizes wasted effort re-writing consumer-facing sites,” IE’s boss noted.

Microsoft’s commitment to 10 years of support for IE10 is another jab at Mozilla and Google.

Currently, the Redmond company is positioning Internet Explorer as the only valid alternative for business customers who have been shun off by Mozilla and Google because they can’t keep up the pace with a six week upgrade cycle.

Firefox 5 and future releases, as well as current and upcoming iterations of Chrome are only supported for approximately six weeks, until superseding versions get launched.

The same won’t happen to IE10 and upcoming variants, since the Redmond company remains steadfast in offering end users and business customers multi-year support commitments.

Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) Platform Preview 2 (PP2) Build 10.0.1008.16421 is available for download here.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.