Microsoft’s Vision for Internet Explorer 9

After being behind in terms of support for emerging standards such as HTML 5 for some time, with other browsers quickly gaining ground, Microsoft is working hard on the release of its Internet Explorer web browser. The upcoming update will include what Microsoft is calling “interoperable HTML 5”, feature improved performance and support SVG graphics.

Microsoft is taking these steps to ensure that Internet Explorer is able to take advantage of the next generation of the web, using new standards such as HTML 5 for marking up pages, and a new version of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS3) for formatting the page’s data.

General Manager of the Internet Explorer team, Dean Hachamovitch, stated that the HTML spec struck him with the opportunities that HTML 5 could provide developers and end users, announcing that “Reading the HTML 5 specification, what struck me is the opportunity HTML 5 applications will have to do things. We had the opportunity to think how will this go, how will it stress these systems, how is it going to stress the internet. This stuff is really going to need the hardware in ways HTML applications and Ajax applications don’t.”