Perhaps taking a page from Google and Mozilla, Microsoft surprised attendees at the Mix 11 conference Tuesday with the introduction of Internet Explorer 10 platform preview.
The release comes just four weeks after Microsoft unveiled IE9. Microsoft's Dean Hachamovitch (left) said during a keynote at Mix 11 that IE10 builds on the performance breakthroughs and native HTML5 support developed for IE9, which will lead to the adoption of HTML5 with a long-term commitment to the standards process.
IE10 Platform Preview 1 is available for download now on Microsoft's Web site.
"We built IE9 from the ground up for HTML5 and for Windows to deliver the most native HTML5 experience and the best Web experience on Windows," Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for IE, wrote in a blog post. "IE10 continues on IE9's path, directly using what Windows provides and avoiding abstractions, layers, and libraries that slow down your site and your experience."
Hachamovitch said Microsoft is about three weeks into the development of IE10, but wanted to start engaging the community now. Platform previews will be released every 8 to 12 weeks.
At Mix, Microsoft also released several new browser test drives at www.ietestdrive.com for those who want to see emerging standards like CSS3 Multi-column Layout, CSS3 Grid Layout and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout, CSS3 Gradients, and ES5 Strict Mode. The company also demoed additional standards support like CSS3 Transitions and CSS3 3D Transforms, which will be available in subsequent platform previews of IE10.
Microsoft also released test drive samples for today's production browsers, including Fishbowl (an update to FishIE Tank) and Paintball, which Microsoft said is "another great demonstration of what fully hardware accelerated HTML5 Canvas delivers."
"IE's approach to emerging standards results in less churn and more progress for developers," Hachamovitch continued. "IE10 builds on full hardware acceleration and continues our focus on site-ready Web-standards. This combination enables developers to deliver the best performance for their customers on Windows while using the same, Web-standard markup across browsers."