Microsoft Ships Last IE9 Preview Before Beta Release

August 9, 2010

Microsoft announced that it is shipping the final technology preview of Internet Explorer (IE) 9 -- the last pre-beta release of the company's new browser before it hits public beta testing next month.

Called the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 4, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has shipped a series of pre-beta releases of IE9 since March in an effort to get webmasters, site developers and designers to buy in early to the testing process.

Microsoft said the previous three platform previews were downloaded a total of 2.5 million times.

"Developers have had an earlier (and more frequently updated) look at the platform [and] with that early engagement, developer feedback has had a bigger impact than before," Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for IE, said in a post to Microsoft's IEBlog Wednesday.

Microsoft COO Kevin Turner told analysts gathered at the company's headquarters last week for its annual financial analysts meeting that the public beta of IE9 will begin in September.

The company released IE8 in March 2009. In that release, Microsoft attempted to bring IE into closer alignment with existing Web standards in response to repeated criticisms that earlier versions lacked such compliance. ...

Continue reading this article

Source: datamation.com