IE8 Will Be Called IE8
Here’s a shocker: Microsoft has confirmed that they will be releasing Internet Explorer 8 and are working on it now, and that, indeed it will be called IE8. Yeah, no more news beyond that. Sorry.
Neowin is speculating on whether Microsoft should consider making Silverlight part of IE8 in order to guarantee a significant and growing percentage of users has Silverlight installed. Silverlight is important for Microsoft’s plans, and the more users that have it, the more reasons for developers to create applications for it, and thus the more reasons for other users to install it, so Microsoft could get more aggressive pushing it.
If Microsoft builds Silverlight into IE8, it’ll be on 20% of PCs probably within 12-18 months, at the least, enough to make a nice impact on the market, plus Silverlight as part of the browser will probably run better than as a plugin. Microsoft should make a deal with Adobe, though, to include Flash built in on every browser that ships with Silverlight, in order to make things fair. I say go for it.
