Shoutbox

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Originally posted by Neowin
Yes, I said Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta will be here by this summer.

Thanks to an alert at the featured sites community website, we are at liberty to share news on the new version of IE, of which so far, will only be available for Windows XP SP2 customers. Speaking at the Keynote Address at RSA Conference, Gates confirmed it:
“We’re installing Windows XP SP2 companywide on over 50,000 desktops because we recognize that its security enhancements are significant. As the frequency of attacks against computer systems increases, it’s becoming critically important to have our systems protected against hackers, viruses and other security risks,” said Joseph Martella, director of End User Computing, Product Engineering at Merrill Lynch.

Building on those advancements, Gates announced Internet Explorer 7.0, designed to add new levels of security to Windows XP SP2 while maintaining the level of extensibility and compatibility that customers have come to expect. Internet Explorer 7.0 will also provide even stronger defenses against phishing, malicious software and spyware. The beta release is scheduled to be available this summer.
Gates also announced the Windows Update beta to start mid-march, and a final version of the Windows Anti-Spyware tool to be made available to all customers of licensed Windows at no charge.

View: IE Team Web Blog


The announcement in full (also available at the IE Team Web Blog)

Featured Community Site Owners,

Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.

First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2 and (among other things) go further to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software.

Why? Because we listened to a lot of customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: “Yes, SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.”

I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”

Why are we talking about it today? Because our customers have asked us, with increasing urgency, what our plans are. We want to convey our intentions to our customers clearly and in a timely way.

I’ve gotten questions about the ship date. We know that feedback from customers and partners is crucial. We’re going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We’ll ship when the product is right.

I’ve gotten other questions about support for Windows 2000. Right now, we’re actively listening to our major Windows 2000 customers about what they want and comparing that to the engineering complexity of that work. That’s all I can say on that topic.

Please know that the IE team is working hard. We’re eager to improve and better secure the web experience for the hundreds of millions of IE users around the world. We delivered on XP SP2. We are actively delivering on our part of a great 64-bit Windows client. We continue to deliver on security updates for customers who have not moved to XP SP2. We’re going to deliver on IE7.

Dean Hachamovitch

General Manager, IE Core Development Team

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