Business | Technology
Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8
Firm says web is at the centre of everything it does as it seeks to expand beyond the desktop business.
- Reuters
- Published: 01:24 March 7, 2008
Las Vegas: Micro-soft asked software developers to "bet on us" as it began making test versions available of Internet Explorer 8, an upgraded version of the main software used to browse the web.
At Microsoft's MIX08 conference on Wednesday, the company's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, said the web was at the centre of everything Microsoft was doing as it seeks to expand beyond the desktop business it dominates.
"I know today that you have many amazing technology choices available to you, but I'd like you to bet on us," Ozzie told an audience of web developers.
Microsoft has been pushing for a "software plus services" strategy that uses the internet to augment traditional software that runs on a computer's hard drive.
Ozzie also extended an olive branch to Yahoo, the web pioneer that Microsoft is targeting in a unsolicited takeover offer, saying Yahoo has "creative people and interesting online properties."
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft provided a first look at Internet Explorer 8. IE 7 was released in October 2006.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is used by three-quarters of the world's web users, far more than Mozilla's Firefox, which has a 17 per cent share of the market, and Apple's Safari with six per cent, according to data from website analytics company Net Applications.
The browser is also part of the ongoing battle between Microsoft and arch-rival Google.
Firefox is closely affiliated with Google, which in 2006 provided around 85 per cent of the $66.8 million in revenue of Firefox's parent organisation, the Mozilla Foundation.
Microsoft's new browser is available to developers at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie8.
User features
Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hacha-movitch showed some user features of IE 8, but he did not give a launch date for it.
One feature called "Activities" lets users highlight an address on a website, then see a map within the site with a single click. Another feature lets users save work done on a website to the local computer when an internet connection goes down.
Technology
Packaging benefit
Critics argue that Internet Explorer is inferior to rival browsers in terms of security, speed and navigation features and that Microsoft maintains its lead because Explorer is packaged along with the company's Windows operating system.
Microsoft also said it was making available a public test version of its Silverlight 2 multimedia technology. Silverlight 2 is the next version of Microsoft's competitor to Adobe Systems's.
And it released a test version of Expression Studio 2, the latest version of Microsoft's software suite targeted at web designers and developers.
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