By John E. Burke, Principal Research Analyst, 10/26/06

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has just released Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), the first major update of its browser in several years. Three key drivers for releasing it were competition, compatibility, and security consciousness, and Microsoft’s efforts in these directions underscore the gradual shift of desktop computing towards a thinner and more secure state.

Pressured by the still-growing popularity of Firefox and to a lesser extent Safari and Opera, one key change Microsoft has made in IE7 is improved support for web standards such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript. This is important to the shape of future client interfaces as such standards form the backbone of many of the new, high-function web front-ends gracing both web sites and enterprise applications. These tools are built with the goal of easier cross-platform functionality but are often hobbled by the need to code in support for IE6 “quirks” in handling standards-based requests. In IE7, for example, many JavaScript commands that are currently handled via transformation into Microsoft-proprietary ActiveX controls have their own native JavaScript objects.

More important still, the ongoing discovery of security holes in IE6 has driven Microsoft to try to make IE7 far more secure than its predecessor. Certainly, the changes in the browser’s default behaviors – making the safer option the default in far more situations – represent a fundamental shift towards a more secure paradigm.

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