Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta Coming in September

Microsoft plans to release a beta version of its upcoming Internet Explorer 9 browser sometime in September.

Speaking at the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting on July 29, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said the company will be moving ahead with a beta of the next generation of the company's ubiquitous browser technology.

Turner said, "We're really excited about IE9, which will be beta and coming out in September."

Microsoft's IE team initially delivered a preview version of the IE9 technology at the company's MIX 2010 conference last March in Las Vegas. There the team pledged to deliver updates every eight weeks. Microsoft delivered IE9 Platform Preview 3 (IE9PP3) in June, and now a beta is expected in September, according to Turner.

Launching the IE9 preview at MIX, Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft, said Microsoft's goal is to enable developers to use the same CSS, HTML and other Web technologies to take advantage of PC hardware. The mantra of "same markup" has permeated the ongoing development of the product, and Microsoft continues to increase standards compatibility and support in the technology.

In particular, Microsoft has embraced the HTML5 standard for IE9.

"IE9 puts the power of the whole PC on the Web," said Rob Mauceri, Microsoft's principal group program manager for Internet Explorer, in a previous interview with eWEEK. "Browsers today use less than 10 percent of the PC's computing power, but Canvas and HTML5 audio and video let you use all of the power of the PC."

Microsoft also continues to improve the performance, reliability and scores on standard browser tests such as Acid3. At last look with IE9PP3, Microsoft scored 83 out of 100 on the Acid3 test.

Turner referred to the combination of Windows 7, IE 8/9 and Office 2010 as Microsoft's "triple play."

He also noted that IE has seen a bit of growth in market share of late. "Yes, we had a little headwind, we had several things we had to do with IE8 this past year. But guess what per external data in the marketplace? In May and June, we grew share in the browser space for the first time in a very long time.

"So, the momentum on that has turned, and it's a whole new day. And where we're going with IE9 and what we're going to do from an HTML5 standard standpoint and where we're going from a speed standpoint, we're really going in a big way in this space this next year and have a great story to tell, including around safety and security in the browser space."