Microsoft has released a new preview of Internet Explorer 9 featuring performance improvements and increased standards support. The latest IE9 test build will give web-site designers and software developers an opportunity to play with new capabilities such as CSS3 2-D features that let site visitors rotate photos, graphics and text segments.
Smart devices of all types have become “powerful platforms that present new opportunities to do exciting applications with user interfaces that are more approachable than ever before,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. At the heart of Microsoft’s next-generation browser is HTML5 technology that will provide the next “wave of innovation between the back end and the front end,” he added.
“It’s the lingua franca for talking to all of these smart devices across the planet,” Ballmer said during his keynote address at the company’s Professional Developers Conference on Thursday.
Fastest in History
The empowerment that HTML5 gives web designers and app developers is the major reason why the previous IE9 test build that Microsoft launched last month has become the fastest-adopted IE beta release in Microsoft’s history, said Microsoft Vice President Dean Hachamovitch.
“In the six weeks since we released Internet Explorer 9, we’ve seen 10 million downloads, and that means a lot of enthusiasm from developers,” Hachamovitch explained to PDC 10 attendees. “And that popularity reflects the significant improvements in browsing that IE9 brings to the web.”
Despite all the fanfare around smartphones and web tablets, Ballmer noted that the PC remains the number-one smart device on the planet, and Microsoft has sold more than 240 million Windows 7 licenses in the past 12 months — equivalent to 88 percent of the entire PC market. For this reason, he said, web designers and app developers need to ensure that they are taking advantage of all of Windows 7’s…