Explorers
Software giant Microsoft decided it was so excited about the latest version of its web browser - Internet Explorer 9 - that it warranted a special event.
UK consumer boss Ashley Highfield kicked things off by saying "With IE9, we want to make the web a more beautiful place." Corporate hot air? Quite possibly, but what he was alluding to is a belief within Microsoft that the browser should be moved very much into the background in favour of the websites themselves. While there's a strong argument that's already the case, it's still a fair point.
"IE9 has been seamlessly integrated into Windows 7 - websites are the new apps," he persisted. "We want the browser to melt away." But there are some other improvements, with Highfield focusing on speed, reliability and interoperability.
To expand on all this newness, he handed over to UK consumer director Leila Martine (pictured below), who graced the famous HEXUS sofa in the build-up to the Windows 7 launch a year ago.
Martine itemised four key points that define the new IE:
- Fast
- Clean
- Trusted
- Interoperability
While each of these points was duly demonstrated, the emphasis was on how IE9 enabled developers to make better websites. To that end HTML 5 interoperability was mentioned and, once more, all the cool stuff that's enabled by IE9. One of the most notable tweaks is the apparent extent to which IE9 has been optimised for GPU acceleration. We were shown a lot of demos of video being played without any plugins, such as Flash and Silverlight.
