Internet Explorer: A Browser Breaks

"Enterprises aren't loving Internet Explorer 7, so how can its successor do any better?...

For businesses looking for a standards-compliant Web browser, Internet Explorer won't be the choice in 2008, with IE 6 entrenched and IE 8's release as much as a year away—or more, if closely aligned with Windows 7. For Web developers, the standards headaches will continue as long as IE 6 enterprise adoption remains high...

There is huge competitive opportunity for Mozilla, and even Apple, to exploit Microsoft's browser problems. Both organizations have highly standards-compliant browsers that can be deployed at lower risk."

Why Browser War 2.0 Will Heat Up in 2007

readwriteweb.com: "Our theory is that in 2006 a lot of the ground work for a major battle was laid out. Microsoft launched a significant upgrade to Internet Explorer for the first time in about 5 years (IE7), while the Firefox team spent time polishing up their open source browser. But it is the latest developments which make it clear that Firefox thinks it's showtime."

This is an interesting article, and I really got a kick out of the illustration. Between the business interests and the (still) inconsistent support for web standards in IE7, it should be another interesting year in the browser-sphere.

Microsoft releases long-awaited Explorer 7

"Microsoft Corp. released Internet Explorer 7 on Wednesday, the first major upgrade to its Web browser since 2001 with new features aimed at preventing online fraud and improving ease of use...

IE 7 is available immediately to Windows XP users and it will eventually serve as the default browser for Microsoft's much-anticipated Windows Vista operating system, due out to consumers in early 2007."

IE 7 is available for download at www.microsoft.com/ie

Let's hope that support for standards in this final release is close to that of Firefox. Unfortunately for designers/developers this more likely means that we'll be testing for IE 5, 6, and now 7 too - at least until Vista ships and the adoption rate for 7 picks up.