MS should bite the bullet and introduce web standards compliance in IE8 even if that breaks existing apps. Enterprise may moan, but they are free to remain with IE7 and update to IE8 when they are also standard compliant.

As for websites being broken by IE8, well they are already broken as they do not adhere to standards.
Its a bitter pill to take, but one that needs taking to cure those rendering ills.

Looks like some good overtime will be available..

i think a back-compat rendering engine or mode is a perfectly acceptable way of them dealing with the mess. Or leave IE6/7 on the Windows box when the IE8 installer runs.

Either way enterprise apps can be accessed via the back-compat mode (maybe a special IE zone where you add urls to), or shortcuts that launch IE6/7.

One thing the IE team should not do in my opinion is to have the old rendering mode as default and the standards compliant mode activated with some switch or reghack.

I agree with you partly. The increase in activity at the IE blog is in response to Chairman Bill being put on the spot. Beyond that I differ.

Career advancement at Microsoft is no longer about technical achievement. Choice assignments and bonuses are based on what you add to the bottom line. Working on Internet Explorer is a career killer for a developer or manager. I would expect that at all levels the talent of the IE team is a shadow of the revenue generating teams. The best people would know to be elsewhere.

In the video on Channel 9, Microsoft said it would be dealing with compatibility issues by having IE8 look for an indication on a web site that the site is standards-complianr. If so, IE8 will run in "standards" mode. If IE8 finds no such indication, it will run in IE7 "compatibility" mode for that site.

If you think about it, this is the only rational way to promote web standards while allowing web site developers time to move their sites over to the latest standards, i.e., without causing the grief that IE7 caused.

Doesn't IE7 already have a non-quirks (IE6 and prior) mode that runs if the doctype is XHTML?

The rather forced upgrade of IE6 to IE7 cause our company a whole host of problems. So much so about 40% of the staff now use Firefox as their main browser with IE6/7 as a backup for poor web sites.

Microsoft maybe having major internal issues because the move to standards at long last means that they are heading to be 'Firefox compatable' which is not how they will want to be viewed.

And we will use...
Firefox 3.0
Firefox 3 Beta 2 includes approximately 900 improvements over the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b2/releasenotes/

-------------------
First Look at Firefox 3.0 Beta 2
blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1061
Quote:
Beta 2 feels snappier and far more responsive than beta 1 (or Firefox 2.0 for that matter) and I can feel the difference on all the systems that I’ve tried it on - from a lowly Sempron system to my quad-core monsters. No matter what you want doing - opening a new tab, moving tabs, opening up Find, zooming in and out of the page, bookmarking - it all happens swiftly and smoothly. Finally, Firefox feels like it’s back to being faster and more responsive than Internet Explorer. The bloat seems to have been trimmed away and what remains is fast.

Is it just timing that Opera complains about MS not being compliant. Then two weeks later we see a BLOG entry and word that at MIX we will see more and a video on channel 9 about IE 8 passing the ACID2 test.
And now that MS is changing what do we do about all of the others?
acid2.wikispaces.com

Patch Tuesday paralyses Internet Explorer
pcpro.co.uk/news/149277/patch-tuesday-paralyses-internet-explorer.html
Last week's critical security update to Internet Explorer has crippled the browser for many users.

The problem is reportedly affecting Internet Explorer 6 users on Windows XP. The fault causes the browser to crash in a number of different scenarios, such as when printing web pages.

You act as if this has nothing to do with Omni's suit, which you don't even mention. You'd be wrong.

Ultimately, though, Microsoft is talking about IE 8 for the same reason they're talking about Windows 7. Their current products in those catagories suck, and people are asking questions and looking at better alternatives.

So Microsoft is running their ususal playbook of talking up what's next and hoping the market will freeze waiting for it. That works less each time they try it.

Marco,
I am so glad the Firefox 3.0 is faster and more responsive that IE7. That essentially kills the myth that Microsoft uses secret API's to make it's programs and servers better and most responsive than competition. This has been the slogan from Netscape and Firefox (or at least their supporters) for a long time. Which brings me back to my moto... make a better "x" (where is x is OS, application etc.) and I will use it. It's a more effective way to win market share than litigating.

@Keith P.

IE7 has a standards and a quirks mode, but I think I read somewhere IE8 is going to have the old standards and quirks modes as well as a new "IE8 standards mode."

Joe said:"Compliance with Web standards will mean the breaking of some applications and most certainly many Web sites. So Microsoft has to weigh one interoperability problem against another."

I call Bullsh*t! You, Joe, obviously are making this up and have no real idea of how web sites are designed. I'll bet you got that cruft from someone at Microsoft who spoon fed you that lie. Most sites or any sophistication run javascripts to identify the browser version and then adapt the page's code so as not to break rendition on non-compliant browsers (i.e. MS IE browser is the most egregious violator but no browser is perfect). So if IE 8 were suddenly wonderfully standards-compliant, those scripts will not do anything special when IE 8 comes knocking. There is no problem. Stop spreading MS BS.

I love Opera, it's the best browser out there, FF and IE just copied stuff from Opera.
I do hope all these browsers will respect standards, it's way too much work to make a website to run in all browsers...

Just have it accept extensions and have an IE7 rendering extension. An IE Tab for IE.

Joe,
It makes you wonder, since MS comes out with a closer web standards compliant early prototype IE8, in one week since Opera files the lawsuite with the EU. Two possibilities, that I see, one MS knew after the major EU case involving server standards,that the standards battle would move into other of its software, two, that MS has more than one prototypes or branches, of any piece of software it develops, such as IE, in case of this type of problem. A web compliant IE is not something they seem to ever have wanted, without external pressure.

Anyway, this case is only started. There will be more cases bought before the EU. Expect some on Office formats, even should MS get their standard strong armed in. In fact, just by doing that, getting the Office 2007 standard passed by unethical means, could also add fire to an EU lawsuit in the future. MS as the evil empire bribing the standards body, packing it with their partners, etc, with a little documentition, will make them like even more like a hostile monopoly in the EU courts. Expect more down the line, with Outlook Express, MS Audio and Video files. and licensing to OEM's, all to be bought to the attention of the EU. Its only just begun.

Some further thoughts on the browser wars and open standards.

I believe there will also in time be a push in the courts for MS to open source their API's. As the world's governments will come to realize that these API's are what is stopping software from being effectively written for any OS, and for hardware, to work on any OS. Software that was written, should not have to be continuously rewritten for new Operating Systems. Why keep reinventing the wheel, because of the propitiatory API's of MS? So what it comes down to eventually, is what should be allowed in an OS, to be closed, and patented, and what should be open and follow a standard? This is the ultimate question that perhaps these lawsuits, one by one will address in courts like the EU, and perhaps others. The lockinware of MS, could now start to become a major problem for its creator. The world will be a better place without the lockin of M$. Microsoft products will become better without this unethical lockinware, as in the very least, they will be compatible then with other formats, and M$ will have more time, to actually make their products better, than spend all their time on locking people in with propitiatory patented means.

Governments of the world, the EU, Korea, France, Norway, are just starting to see the usefulness of Open Source and Linux solutions. They cut down the cost, are far less prone to failure, and at least so far, are secure, which MS is not. Governments are suffering from the Office protocols, and this is the catalyst that has started the observation by them, of the abusing monopoly practices by MS.

Who knows, after the next election, perhaps we could get someone elected in the USA that is not sleeping with MS. Although, its highly unlikely with all the campaign donations that MS is capable of.

Bill Gates is retiring? :'(
what is the world coming to lol

FSFE Supports Microsoft Antitrust Investigation

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/25/0038221

FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the letter, "Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser market."

Because the Internet has become increasingly interactive, Internet Explorer 8 makes it easier to interact with content on a Web page. Accelerators are a type of browser extensions that act on Web page content by sending the information to a service of the user's choosing. Services then perform actions on the content (such as "email" or "bookmark") or provide more information ("translate" or "map"). Users can install and access Accelerators from the browser shortcut menu, making their browsing experience more efficient.

IE 8 has lost the plot. The browser, once most popular among all is now facing a downwards trend and needs an entire redevelopment from browser engine to design. Microsoft needs to think over the stability issues in IE that are drawing users away to Mozilla and likes.