Microsoft touts HTML5 as the core of next year's Internet Explorer 9
Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's senior director of Internet Explorer, is remarkably chirpy for a man whose product's market share has plunged from 90% to roughly 60%, but it seems things are not all bad. "The future for IE is as bright as it's been any time over the past five years," he says. "IE8 is the fastest-growing browser in history: it's the number one browser on Windows, and the number one across all OSs. The simple truth comes down to: every single day, more users are choosing Internet Explorer 8 than any other modern browser out there."
Gavin is also showing a platform preview of next year's IE9, which, at least on his chosen demos, trounces Google Chrome for speed by making use of the PC's graphics processor.
What's more, he's just as keen to see the back of the nine-year-old IE6 as anybody else. "IE6 was built for a very different web at a very different time," says Gavin. "A modern web does require a modern browser. My aim is to get IE6's market share to zero as fast as humanly possible. That's good for the web, good for developers, and good for us."
