When I asked Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of the Internet Explorer division, what drove the design of the new UI, he described the guiding design principle with a question: 'How can we quiet the browser so that the site shines?' The answer is in the screenshot below (click to see full size): The missing piece is the previously top-secret IE9 interface, which Microsoft publicly unveiled today. In four earlier platform previews, aimed primarily at developers, Microsoft has already shown off some of what it's delivering in IE9: dramatically improved performance, thanks to hardware acceleration and an improved JavaScript engine, along with a relentless emphasis on compatibility with modern web standards. But the notion that rendering a web page has to be done in a branded browser is old-school thinking, according to Microsoft. In a world where PC users spend more time on the web than on any other task, and where apps are increasingly moving online, being able to quickly and accurately render HTML markup and execute script is more important than ever. Not literally, of course, and not completely. With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is trying to make the browser disappear. Based on that experience, I have some preliminary answers to the questions you're asking: Is it fast enough? Is it compatible enough? Is it cool enough to win back former IE users who have switched to other browsers, first to Firefox and more recently to Google Chrome? And will this shiny new browser be able to rehabilitate the tarnished Internet Explorer brand?

Since that meeting, I've been using the IE9 beta extensively on multiple PCs, including my primary desktop and notebook computers. I sat down with Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of the Internet Explorer division, earlier this month for a first look at the IE9 interface and a discussion of Microsoft's goals and its competition. But this beta is the first time Microsoft has publicly shown off the new browser's user interface and given its Windows customers a product they can use day in and day out. Developers and IT pros have been able to shake out compatibility issues and benchmark performance with four public platform previews over the past six months. It has also detailed its efforts to improve IE9's performance compared to previous releases. Microsoft has been talking since last fall about its determined effort to adhere to Web standards and embrace HTML5.

It is, without question, the most ambitious browser release Microsoft has ever undertaken, and despite the beta label it is an impressively polished product.Ī closer look at the Internet Explorer 9 beta (screenshots)

Today in San Francisco, Microsoft will officially unveil Internet Explorer 9 and make it available to the general public.

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