For Microsoft, IE9 (Internet Explorer 9) was a project with so much techs’ appeal that it was sure to make the world wide web melt when it was released. While it certainly hasn’t performed poorly since its official launch, it’s not reclaiming a lost market either; in fact, much of the territory gained was cannibalized from earlier versions of Microsoft’s web browser. Still, Microsoft is dominant in web browsers in North America and holds a strong position in Europe – and they’re not just sitting back and letting the competition gain on them. IE10, after all, is already being previewed.
The first demonstration was given at the Microsoft Mix11 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. There the Corporate Vice President of IE, Dean Hachamovitch, showcased where the fledgling version ten would be taking us. Unlike IE9, which aimed to re-build the entire internet browser from scratch, IE10 will simply work on being ready and able – and fast – for all new web standards.
“IE10 builds on full hardware acceleration and continues our focus on site-ready web standards,” said Hachamovitch. That includes HTML 5 capabilities and CSS 3. The showcase at Mix11 demonstrated how IE10 will make way for advanced CSS 3 options such as gradients and flexible box layouts. The demonstration also showed IE10 besting Chrome on a number of key markers, but there has been controversy on the legitimacy of Microsoft’s comparative testing in the past (some call it fair, some call it biased, some call it rigged).
IE10 is only three weeks into development at this point, but is already available for download. New versions will be available on an eight to 12 week release cycle. There’s no word, however, on when this new version might reach the “release candidate” checkpoint – and Microsoft has plenty of keeping up to do, what with Firefox 4 and Chrome 11 both bolting out of the gates.
[via Mashable]
