Office 2007 Pro Key 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 make World-wide-web Explorer (IE) standards-compliant, Microsoft has gone on record stating IE eight will include assistance for essential Web requirements.
Microsoft verified final week that an internal test develop of IE eight passed the Acid2 Browser Test,Purchase Windows 7, according to Dean Hachamovitch,Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus, Common Manager of IE Development. Hachamovitch noted the milestone in a blog post to the IE Crew blog on December 19. Microsoft also posted a video clip to its Channel nine Internet web-site explaining the finer factors for developers interested in the Acid2 particulars.
Acid2 is often a check web page, maintained through the independent Web Standards Job group, which was written to aid browser vendors ensure assistance for Internet requirements within their goods.
“I;m delighted to tell you that on Wednesday, December 12, Internet Explorer correctly rendered the Acid2 page in IE8 standards mode,” Hachamovitch blogged. “While supporting the features tested in Acid2 is valuable for many reasons,Buy Office 2010, it is just one of several milestones for the interoperability,Office 2007 Pro Key, 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 inside the first half of 2008.
Hachamovitch denied that Microsoft;s decision to disclose this week IE eight;s planned standards compliance was related to Opera;s antitrust fit launched final week. Hachamovitch said Microsoft has been working on making IE eight Acid2-compliant since IE eight planning began.
(Note: I have asked Opera to comment on how Microsoft;s news on IE eight 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 8. I asked him when Microsoft is planning to ship the last 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 make non-public check builds of IE eight available to select testers outside of Microsoft in early 2008; and whether Silverlight,Office 2010 License, 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 Blog posting, Hachamovitch said: “We;ll cover more particulars of the non-developer oriented work (e.g. user experience, reliability, security, etc.) in other posts within the future, immediately after 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 details since then.
In the IE weblog posting, 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 final product. We;re listening to the feedback about IE, and at the same time, we are committed to responsible disclosure and setting expectations properly. Now that we;ve run the test on multiple machines and seen it work, we;re excited to be able to share definitive information.”
Microsoft;s IE group has been baraged by critics who have been unhappy with Microsoft;s failure to provide IE 8 timing and feature guidance. The crew also has been roundly chastized for years — and not just by Opera — for its slowness in making IE compliant with the latest iterations of standard Web requirements, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), DHTML an document object model (DOM).
Web developers: What do you think about the IE 8 crew;s latest disclosures? What else do you want/need to hear sooner rather than later about Microsoft;s future browser plans?