Microsoft shows off Internet Explorer 9: says 'yes' to HTML5, 'no' to Windows XP

Microsoft is having a good old time at MIX10, showing off all sorts of new things. New things like... Internet Explorer 9, which has just been previewed at the developer event, and here's what we've gleaned about it so far. First off, as expected it will support HTML5 video, boast a new Microsoft JavaScript engine which is codenamed "Chakra," and it'll support new-fangled web technologies like CSS3 and SVG2. Microsoft says one of its main goals with IE9 is to provide a faster browsing experience -- always good news -- though they don't have things cranked quite as high as the competition just yet (remember, this is still early). Preliminary ACID3 tests on the preview show the IE9 scores a 55/100, up from IE8's dismal 20/100 -- a huge leap forward no doubt, but still a far cry from the Chrome, Opera, and Safari scores of 100. In both PCMag's and ZDNet's SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark test, the preview performed competitively as well. Microsoft has also confirmed that IE9 will not support Windows XP, but the preview Microsoft is showing off plays nice with Vista SP2 and higher, meaning the shipping version will probably do the same. No shockers there, really. Microsoft's also made the first developer preview of Internet Explorer 9 available for download today -- hit the source link to check that out. Full press release is after the break.

Update: Chrome, Opera, and Safari do indeed score 100/100 in ACID3 testing, not "nearly" as previously stated. Thanks commenters for pointing out the obvious.

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Microsoft Announces Hardware-Accelerated HTML5, Pushes Boundaries on Web and Cloud Development
Microsoft releases first platform preview for Windows Internet Explorer 9, highlights commitments to jQuery and OData.

LAS VEGAS - March 16, 2010 - Industry standards and innovation took center stage at MIX10, as Microsoft Corp. made a series of announcements that underscore the company's commitment to interoperability and performance on the Web. Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer at Microsoft, unveiled the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview including expanded support for HTML5, hardware-accelerated graphics and text, and a new JavaScript engine. Together these allow developers to use the same markup and deliver graphically and functionally rich Web applications that take advantage of modern PC hardware through a modern operating system.

Microsoft also announced that it will contribute to the development of new features and enhancements in the jQuery JavaScript Library and shared the release of new software development kits (SDKs) for the Open Data Protocol (OData) that make it easier for developers to access data from the cloud to create more compelling cross-platform Web applications.

Raising Developer Expectations With Hardware Acceleration, Increased Interoperability

As part of its commitment to interoperability, Microsoft detailed its support for a number of HTML5 specifications, including CSS3, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), XHTML parsing, and the video and audio tags using industry-standard (H.264/MPEG4 and MP3/AAC) codecs, among others. In addition, Microsoft demonstrated a new JavaScript engine that uses the multiple cores of today's modern chips to effectively manage computing resources and improve Web performance. By combining increased interoperability with a new JavaScript engine and Direct 2D technology, Internet Explorer 9 enables Web developers to provide users with richer experiences that render more quickly and consistently.

"I am very happy with Microsoft's commitment to the HTML Working Group and to HTML5," said Philippe Le Hegaret, W3C, Domain Leader.

"Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser to take standard Web patterns that developers use and run them better on modern PCs through Windows," Hachamovitch said.

Starting at MIX10, developers also will be able to track Microsoft's progress and provide direct feedback on the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview by evaluating new code refreshes approximately every eight weeks leading up to the beta release. Developers can download the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview at http://www.IETestDrive.com.

"Internet Explorer 9 enabling GPU-accelerated HTML5 is a milestone for visual computing," said Drew Henry, general manager of GeForce and ION GPU business unit at NVIDIA Corp. "By harnessing the power of NVIDIA GPUs, Internet Explorer 9 removes the glass ceiling for Web developers, enabling them to build graphically rich, high-performing Web applications."

Increased Support of Client Development Through the jQuery JavaScript Library

As part of Microsoft's broad engagement with open source communities, Corporate Vice President Scott Guthrie today announced that Microsoft is investing resources to contribute to the development of the jQuery JavaScript Library to help improve the development process of standards-based Web applications. Microsoft will also work to provide better interoperability between ASP.NET and the jQuery JavaScript Library by enhancing ASP.NET so .NET developers can better incorporate jQuery capabilities. In addition, Microsoft will actively promote and distribute versions of the jQuery JavaScript Library by packaging it with popular products such as Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET MVC 2. As a first step, Microsoft will contribute a templating engine to the jQuery JavaScript Library Team to simplify Web applications.

Creating Compelling User Experiences, Powered by the Cloud

To enable developers to build immersive, cross-platform Web and mobile applications that use data delivered from the cloud, Microsoft also released SDKs for OData, an HTTP and Atom-based approach to data portability, for a number of languages and platforms including .NET, Java, PHP, Objective-C (iPhone and Mac) and JavaScript. In addition, Microsoft announced the second Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Microsoft code-named "Dallas," an information marketplace powered by the Windows Azure platform, which provides developers with access to third-party datasets that can be consumed by Web and mobile applications. By making content and data available with an OData feed via "Dallas," developers can access and monetize their data under their terms and pricing, which can be can built into applications to deliver unique user experiences.

Today, developers can take advantage of more than 30 datasets from content providers, including NAVTEQ, Pitney Bowes Business Insight, Weather Central and Zillow.com, available on the "Dallas" information marketplace. Developers can access the OData SDK at http://www.odata.org and download "Dallas" CTP2 at http://www.Microsoft.com/Dallas.

The latest news from MIX10 is available at http://live.visitmix.com/press.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

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Related Items
Microsoft Resources:

MIX10 Virtual Presskit

MIX10 Web site

IE9 Platform Preview

"Dallas" CTP2
Feature Stories:

Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Tools Roll Out at MIX10 – March 15, 2010
Press Releases:

Microsoft Outlines New Opportunities at MIX10 for Developers to Create Compelling Experiences – March 15, 2010
Speech Transcripts:

Scott Guthrie and Joe Belfiore: MIX10 – March 15, 2010

[Delta Posted Mar 16th 2010 8:32PM]

@Delta

an appropriate time*

While you're at it, an edit button would be really super.

[Ordeith2 Posted Mar 16th 2010 11:24PM]

@Delta

I really don't think they know how.

There really is no other excuse.

[RidEtHeLiGhTNiNg Posted Mar 16th 2010 8:42PM]

if the final product of IE9 scores at least 90+ on Acid3 im going to give it a try..

please microsoft...don't make this the nail in the coffin....

[Edobe Posted Mar 16th 2010 8:42PM]

Will it have Copy and Paste?

[GoodBytes Posted Mar 16th 2010 10:47PM]

@Edobe Applications can use Copy & Paste, but you can't copy let's say text from one application and go to another to paste. That is my understanding on Microsoft comment on that mater.

[dcee Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:18PM]

Opera for me is hard to beat... it always behaves by default how I wished a web browser would behave. Fast, reliable, and intuitive. I just can't understand why it never got more publicity.

As for Microsoft having problem forcing their customer to upgrade, they should maybe use the "Apple way", could be more effective and the internet, companies, computer security in general, would be more happy.

[zipp Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:21PM]

so "IE9" not supporting "XP" will make "XP" the new "IE6"... yikes

[HikaKao Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:24PM]

All these comment about IE6 makes me think of me ol' dad. He won't change browser because he's afraid he'll lose all the bookmarks and all the history.
*sigh*

[ckrames1234 Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:32PM]

How about 'no' to ActiveX and 'yes' to Silverlight?

[N900 Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:47PM]

@ckrames1234 Exactly. Every time I wanted to trial one of CS4's products, ActiveX. =

[stabbytheicepic Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:55PM]

I don't understand why people refuse to let go of XP.

Vista is 100x better the xp, and 7 is better then vista......

Unless you have a computer with terrible hardware that is, then you think vista is buggy and doesn't work.

[PixHD Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:58PM]

And just when you thought microsoft was going somewhere (with Win7 and WP7) they announce that WP7S will not have copy paste, and brag about 55/100 score for the IE... Way to go geniuses.... Thank god for Linux, Mac, Android, Opera etc.

[pmbAustin Posted Mar 17th 2010 2:21AM]

@PixHD I didn't see them bragging at all. I saw them showing the current state of affairs, which including showing how they are significantly better at ACID3 than IE8 already, and are still working. They also clearly stated that they're concerned with user experience and enabling features first, and are concentrating on the most used tags as well as the most desirable/useful tags in HTML5/CSS3. Perhaps they won't hit 100 by the time they release, but it looks like anything they miss on won't be significant to most web developers. I think them being open and honest about this is a good thing, as is their approach for closing the gap.

[stabbytheicepic Posted Mar 16th 2010 10:04PM]

anyone who thinks the acid tests matter is delusional

[onlymyrailgun Posted Mar 16th 2010 10:10PM]

@EGOvoruhk
That:s because MS refuses to abandon Windows XP. If Apple hadn't forced us, there would still be people using it and software written for it. It's not that OS X is so much better than OS 9 that people upgraded. MS needs to send out an official statement, and stop bundling XP with new computers.

[pika2000 Posted Mar 17th 2010 12:45AM]

@onlymyrailgun MS' biggest customer is not you and me, it's corporations, and we know how slow upgrades are on corporations. Heck, my work place was upgraded to XP just 2 years ago (not even SP3, it's SP2 with IE6).

[Wesscoast Posted Mar 16th 2010 10:13PM]

And ... a big fat NO to standards compliance and Webkit?

Good job, guys...

[stabbytheicepic Posted Mar 16th 2010 10:14PM]

actually download the demo and try it out. Better then firefox, and almost as good as chrome if not better because of the features.

[Ordeith2 Posted Mar 16th 2010 11:15PM]

And yet Endadget will still somehow find ways to make sure their website is broken in IE9. Just like it is in IE8, IE7, etc.

[jonwil Posted Mar 16th 2010 11:19PM]

What video codecs will they support with this HTML5 support?
Knowing Microsoft, it will be WM only.

[pika2000 Posted Mar 17th 2010 12:43AM]

@jonwil Windows 7 has native H.264 support.

[PcMadness Posted Mar 17th 2010 4:49AM]

@pika2000

Gah, I got my hopes up thinking MS would solve this issue once and for all. I guess we have to wait and see if Google releases that codec they bought.

[The Shen Posted Mar 16th 2010 11:57PM]

SVG...That's a change.

[kenc3dan Posted Mar 17th 2010 1:10AM]

Some Microsoft noise about GPU acceleration over at an AMD blog indicates that the Canvas tag will be supported by IE9 and have hardware acceleration. Incredible if true. Let it be true and let them implement it properly. I can see it now "Oh yeah, it's got support for the Canvas tag but nothing actually works."

http://blogs.amd.com/developer/2010/03/16/ie9-takes-advantage-of-the-gpu/

[cdf74dc9 Posted Mar 17th 2010 2:02AM]

CSS3 ftw!!! But I still think Chrome is the best looking of the bunch. Can't wait to see the new Firefox though. Oh this is IE9 thread? Oh well, it will be forgotten within days.

[Addidis Posted Mar 17th 2010 2:20AM]

could it be another effort to make people stop using xp and buy vista / 7 ? Byte me microsoft. I dont use ie any ways :P

[mikehenriquezrochac Posted Mar 17th 2010 3:09AM]

Who gives a fck about IE9 not working on XP?I started using Chrome a few weeks ago and I really like it (specially extensions)

[Defcon zero Posted Mar 17th 2010 3:18AM]

Just ran the acid test on my iPhone. Scores 100%. Great. Except the reference render rendered incorrectly. http://yfrog.com/5hiovrj. What a load of crap this test is. And I had to quit using opera because more sites failed than worked.

[christosxx2 Posted Mar 17th 2010 3:28AM]

My Firefox scored a "mere" 94/100...well, that's something I can live with.
Sure isn't the worst thing on my netbook. My IE8 says for the same test "linktest failed" and stops at 11/100.....

[Asimo Posted Mar 17th 2010 5:16AM]

No , no , no (OK, they are working on video, with H.264 [not Theora]), no Websockets, and no Windows XP?

How is it that the competition can make modern browsers with all those features for XP while they, their owners, can't?

[Asimo Posted Mar 17th 2010 5:18AM]

@Asimo
Ummm! the comment system ate my words in angle brackets:
That was "no canvas, no video, no audio", in HTML angle brackets.

BTW, no WebGL either.

[mkhpalm Posted Mar 17th 2010 6:49AM]

Awesome, let me bust out my 2005 celebration hat and confetti! MS is really moving up in the world of internet browsers! What is this only around 5 years behind everybody else now?

Sadly, I can't even keep a joking going about the bane of my working existence. Fix the fucking rendering engine and javascript interpretor bugs or don't do anything MS..... Now you're just inundating us with 3 different versions of utter shit interpretation we have to write special IE hacks into everything just to support.

[watermelonpizza Posted Mar 17th 2010 8:25AM]

IE 7 got 12/100 on the Acid3 test wow thats just... amazing(ly bad!)
gooo Microsoft!
/sarcasm

At least their improving and listening to the people that are buying their products though :D

[FrankLucas Posted Mar 17th 2010 11:54AM]

nobody uses IE :P

[Quikboy Posted Mar 17th 2010 12:13PM]

@FrankLucas : Dude, if I betted you a million dollars if that statement was false, I'd be gaining a lot of moolah.

[Zhuzhu Posted Mar 17th 2010 12:03PM]

IE 9: no Win XP. WinMo 7: no MT, C/P.

Oh, MS, darling of my youth, what has befallen you...

[JimJam707 Posted Mar 17th 2010 1:21PM]

Your welcome for the tip engadget.
:(

[YukYuk Posted Mar 17th 2010 2:50PM]

I'm really glad IE9 will not work on XP. This way, developers get to code for IE6, IE7, IE8 and IE9. It's much better this way.

[weeman Posted Mar 17th 2010 4:15PM]

I haven't used IE for year but I'm pretty pissed that it will not support XP

[zweihander Posted Mar 18th 2010 12:44AM]

no flash? AND they're pimpin' HTML5? ms = apple.. life is change.
albeit a little quicker than MS's business model.

[gigarath Posted May 10th 2010 12:11AM]

I haven't used a Microsoft product in eons.

Ubuntu FTW!