meraTechPort: Internet Explorer 8 Q&A

Many of you might have already come across about the Milestone achieved by IE8 Team as the IE8 now renders the “Acid2 Face” correctly in IE8 standards mode. Very good progress made. Congrats to IE Team.

Here are some Q&A on IE8 where it answers questions like what is IE8, goal with IE8, Standards and Acid2, its availability,IE8 against other browsers:

Q: What is “IE8 standards mode”?

· A: Modern browsers typically have two modes to render web pages, “quirks” and “standards.” Our experience with releasing IE7 taught us that many web sites today expect us to have IE6-compatible behavior. With IE8 we believe we have a deep obligation to interoperability and compatibility with existing web sites, and this has led us to add an additional mode to enable supporting industry standards even better. Developers can now write sites based on standards, insert a flag that tells IE to render in IE8 standards mode, and IE will then switch its rendering engine to use this new mode. This allows pre-existing sites to continue to work, and developers can opt-in to the new rendering engine on their own schedule.

For compatibility purposes IE8’s rendering engine defaults to “quirks” or “standards” mode. Site developers will need to insert a new opt-in flag to request the page to render using “IE8 standards mode.”

· Q: Why does IE need an additional standards mode, and other browsers don’t?

· A: The expectation of pre-existing sites for how “standards mode” functions actually differs significantly across browsers. Many sites today are coded to work properly in other browsers under those browsers’ standards modes, but then hand IE7 a different set of content or styling under that same mode. Our goal is to encourage interoperability for web developers; our new standards mode will attempt to be interoperable with other browsers’ standards modes, so that in other browsers, the page can continue to be rendered by their standards mode.

· Q: What’s ACID 2.0 and why is it important?

· A: At a high level, Acid2 is one test of modern browsers to determine how well they work with several different web standards. Ultimately the key goal of standards is to increase interoperability so developers do not have to write the same site multiple times for different browsers. One of our goals in developing IE8 is support the right set of standards with excellent implementations and do so without breaking the existing web. While successfully rendering ACID 2 is important for many reasons, it is just one of several for the interoperability, standards compliance, and backwards compatibility that we’re committed to for this release.

· Q: If most websites are coded for IE7 or IE6, won’t standards mode in IE8 break the web?

· A: No. Internet Explorer 8 is being developed to allow authors to opt-in to IE8 standards mode. This means that websites coded for previous versions of IE (IE7 or IE6, for example), behave in exactly the same way in IE8 unless website authors opt-in to IE8 standards mode by placing a simple tag at the head of their HTML document.

· Q: Is this in response to Opera’s anti-trust filing with the European Commission last week?

· A: No. All along we have said that we will be deliberate in our communication process around IE8, as we have an obligation to our customers to do so in a responsible manner. We have been working on IE8 for more than a year and ACID 2 has always been one of the milestones we set out to achieve. We understand developers and designer want to know more about IE8 and we are talking about benefits and features relevant to them first.

· Q: Will IE support other Web standards such as CSS 2.1, CSS 3.0, HTML4, DOM, etc.?

· A: As we state in the blog post, we are working on multiple efforts in this release to increase interoperability, standards compliance, and backwards compatibility. We will have more to share about specific standards supported in the near future.

· Q: What is your goal with IE8?

· A: Our goal with Internet Explorer 8 is to deliver the next generation web browser designed for the new web; making it safe and easy to use web services. For consumers, IE8 will deliver the easiest and safest way to experience the web and web services in a way that is meaningful to them. For Web Developers and Internet Content Providers, IE8 will enable consistent development across browser platforms, increased productivity, and richer, more integrated user experiences and services – all without breaking the web.

· Q: What is IE8?

· A: IE8 is the next generation web browser designed for the new web; making it safe and easy to use web services. It is being designed and built with a broad range of customers including consumers, enterprises, partners, web developers, and others. IE8 will also deliver advancements to our broad customer ecosystem and will enable Web Developers, Designers, and ICPs to develop across platforms and versions, boost productivity, and provide richer user experiences – all without breaking the web.

· Q: What about other audiences such as enterprises, consumers and partners – are there any new features or tools for end users?

· A: Yes, IE8 will offer a number of innovative and beneficial features for enterprises, consumers and partners that will help them deliver and experience a richer online experience. We will discuss these areas in more detail in the coming months.

· Q: Why such a wide time range for beta 1 availability? Clearly you have working builds since it successfully rendered ACID2?

· A: All of our product release milestones - general availability or pre-release -- are driven by quality gates. We want to make sure that when we release a product for testing it provides a good experience and enables users to test it against a broad array of scenarios. As such this is the reason for the broad date range.

· Q: Will you release IE8 beta 1 at MIX08?

· A: We will release beta 1 during 1H08. We are not providing more detailed guidance at this time.

· Q: What versions of Windows will it support?

· A: We will release this information in the future.

· Q: You mention some developer benefits, but why should consumers and enterprises be interested in IE8? Or is this just a developer-centric release?

· A: Not at all. As we said, there are a lot of features and benefits in IE8 for developers, enterprises and consumers. Today and over the next few weeks/months we will be talking about some of the new technology that will appeal to developers and designers and enable them to make rich, immersive web sites for consumers. In the future we will begin discussing some of the value for enterprises and consumers.

· Q: If you have working builds of the IE8 why not make them available for testing now?

· A: All of our product release milestones - general availability or pre-release -- are driven by quality gates. We want to make sure that when we release a product for testing it provides a good experience and enables users to test it against a broad array of scenarios. As such this is the reason for the broad date range.

· Q: I watched the Channel 9 video and the UI of IE8 looks awfully similar to IE7. What changes are you making to the chrome of the browser?

· A: As the blog post notes, we’re building IE8 for many different customers (consumers, web service providers, independent software vendors, enterprises, web developers, and others), and we’ll cover more details of the non-developer oriented work in other outreach in the future. This will include consumer features and the UI.

· Q: Why is it taking so long for Microsoft to come out with a new IE?

· A: Our release and communication timeline is driven by the quality of the product. Microsoft is deliberate in our approach to releasing new products and we feel a strong obligation to our customers to do so in a responsible manner that ensures they are getting the safest, most reliable product possible. We’ve designed IE8 to meet the needs to our customers and we have a high level of confidence in the product. As such, we plan to release IE8 as soon as we feel it meets the high quality standards we set for all Microsoft products.

· Q: Is today’s announcement based on pressure from executives or the community?

· A: No. All along we have said that we will be deliberate in our communication process around IE8, as we have an obligation to our customers to do so in a responsible manner. We understand developers and designer want to know more about IE8 and we are talking about benefits and features relevant to them first. We’re committed to communicating facts when the product is solid and we’re confident that we can deliver specific functionality to customers. We reached a major milestone with Acid2 and can now communicate our work in this area.

· Q: When are you anticipating for the general availability of IE8?

· A: Our timeline is driven by the quality of the product. Microsoft is deliberate in our approach to releasing new products and we feel a strong obligation to our customers to do so in a responsible manner that ensures they are getting the safest, most reliable product possible. We’ve designed IE8 to meet the needs to our customers and we have a high level of confidence in the product. As such, we plan to release IE8 as soon as we feel it meets the high quality standards we set for all Microsoft products.

· Q: During the IE7 launch, Microsoft said it would release the next browser within 18-24 months. Are you still on track for this timing?

· A: Our timeline is driven by the quality of the product. When we feel IE8 has effectively incorporated the consumer feedback we receive during the Beta process, we will release the final product.

· Q: What are you doing about developer concerns? You say a lot about what you think about IE8, but what will we actually see and when?

· A: We think developers and designers will be excited about the advancements in IE8 and today we are providing some additional information on our direction. We realize that the delivery of code is when the browser becomes real for developers and we will make a beta available in 1H08.

· Q: What is the official name for the new web browser?

· A: The official name of Microsoft’s next version of the browser is Windows Internet Explorer 8.

· Q: When will IE8 be available?

· A: We are on track to release Beta 1 in the first half of 2008. We will use feedback garnered from Beta 1 to further refine and enhance IE8, and will announce additional milestone timelines further down the line.

· Q: How will IE8 stack to up to Firefox and Safari?

· A: We don’t comment on competitors but we are listening to our customers and are excited about the value IE8 provides. This includes the fundamentals that end users care most about: security, performance, reliability, accessibility and similar issues.