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IE 8 Beta 2 Coming 'Third Quarter'

Senior Technical Account Manager at Microsoft New Zealand Nick MacKechnie posted on his MSDN blog that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is coming in the "third quarter" of this year.

On Monday Senior Technical Account Manager at Microsoft New Zealand Nick MacKechnie posted on his MSDN blog that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is coming in the "third quarter" of this year.

Microsoft has previously said that the next beta for IE 8 would come "this summer." Microsoft released IE 8 Beta 1 in March at its Mix conference; it's available for public download here. Microsoft has not announced when the final version of IE 8 will be released.

There's not much detail about Beta 2 in MacKechnie's post, titled "Microsoft IE 8 Beta 2 Coming! Are your Web sites ready?" In fact, he points readers to this help document for Beta 1 for information on getting sites ready. However, at least the post appears to confirm that Microsoft will not backtrack again from its decision announced in March to have IE 8 conform to Web standards.

"Consistent with our efforts to promote further interoperability across the Web, Microsoft will be releasing Internet Explorer 8 to render content in its most standards-compliant way by default," MacKechnie wrote in part. "Browsing with [IE 8] may cause content written for previous versions of Internet Explorer to display differently than intended. This creates a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8."

MacKechnie also points developers to Microsoft IE 8 Beta 1 readiness toolkit.

Redmond has yet to make any mention of Beta 2 on its official IE 8 site.

About the Author

Becky Nagel serves as vice president of AI for 1105 Media specializing in developing media, events and training for companies around AI and generative AI technology. She also regularly writes and reports on AI news, and is the founding editor of PureAI.com. She's the author of "ChatGPT Prompt 101 Guide for Business Users" and other popular AI resources with a real-world business perspective. She regularly speaks, writes and develops content around AI, generative AI and other business tech. She has a background in Web technology and B2B enterprise technology journalism.

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