IE7 to support transparent PNGs!

[az]

IE7 will support transparent PNGs (yay!), IDN, RSS, will feature tabbed browsing, still no complete CSS2 though (as expected).

AZ

[Kurt]

"Will"? I'll believe when I see

[Jammrock]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5620423.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

Interesting read on how the web designer community has responded to IE 7.

[Jessterw]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5...=zdfd.newsfeed

Interesting read on how the web designer community has responded to IE 7.

The article is a little misleading in making it appear that MS improved IE6's CSS support in response to the original Acid test page, but then it's not surprising given the source...

Microsoft will likely ignore this new Acid test page and do what they feel they need to do, rather than what they've said they'd do previously (years ago as it were). All indications point to MS doing little in the way of improved standards support, except where it might benefit Microsoft. The MS bloggers/developers who are working on IE7 have long been asking for the web developer community to offer up detailed examples of the problems in IE6 and what they can do to fix them, but offering little in response to the numerous examples that have been offered for years already.

Yay. PNG support and tabbed browsing. Nifty. RSS capabilities. Are we really getting excited over these?

[az]

I like the PNG support - finally. Couldn't care less if IE users have tabs or RSS or what-have-you.

AZ

[Jessterw]

Yeah, I digress, PNG support is nice as it will allow web developers to dumb down their pages in one less way for IE.

[xortam]

... All indications point to MS doing little in the way of improved standards support, except where it might benefit Microsoft. ...

No kidding (or is it NSS these days)?!

How much does a browser affect Microsoft's finances?

[Jammrock]

How much does a browser affect Microsoft's finances?

Actually, quite a bit. IE is designed to be the only browser which natively supports proprietary MS internet standards. .NET, ActiveX, SharePoint, Live Meeting, etc. While some browsers can authenticate, and via plug-in use, some of these services, MS will only support the use of these application with IE. And to put in bluntly...MS makes a lot of money off their proprietary internet tools and services.

If a browser like FireFox were to sudden take over the market (hypothetically speaking), MS could lose hundreds of millions in their proprietary networking/internet/intranet applications market. To put it in perspective, here are MS's revenue report for 2Q FY 2005 in market segments that are directly impacted by internet/intranet services:

(in Millions of dollars)
Server and Tools 4,758
Information Worker 5,337
Microsoft Business Solutions 371
MSN 1,128

BTW, that makes up over half of MS's revenue (profits are a different story, though):

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY05/earn_rel_q2_05.mspx

Jammrock