Bill Gates is Tight-Lipped About Internet Explorer's Future

By Scott Gilbertson Categories: browsers

Shockingly enough, the next version of Internet Explorer, which will replace the current IE7, will be known as IE 8. This astounding revelation was divulged by no less a personage than Bill Gates himself, who made the announcement at the ongoing "Mix and Mash" conference in Redmond.

The IE blog’s announcement of IE 8 recounts some other rejected names in what we think is the team’s attempt at humor — it could have been IEVIII or IE 7+1.

Of course no one outside Redmond care what the thing is called, what we want to know is what features will it bring to the table and when will it be released? So far mum’s the word. With the exception of the official name, Microsoft has not detailed any plans for IE 8.

Molly Holzschlag, a web standards advocate, sat down with Bill Gates at the Mix and Mash conference and attempted to find out if IE 8 will continue down the web standards road that IE 7 started on, but despite an admirable persistence on her part, Gates gives few details.

He does say that more details about IE 8 will be announced by the time the MIX conference rolls around in March of 2008, but with regard to standards support things sound less that perfect. Referring to IE’s general manager Dean Hachamovitch, Gates says, “in terms of standards support, he’ll see that it’s a glass half full. [IE 8] adds a bunch of new stuff we didn’t have before, it doesn’t add everything that everybody wants us to do.”

We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the progress of IE 8 when more detail are released.

Posted in: bill gates,ie,itgadget