Electronista reported today that Microsoft is thinking about developing a sibling of Internet Explorer based on open-source technologies, namely Webkit. This platform was popularized by Apple, with its Safari browser, and more recently by Google‘s new browser effort, the Chrome.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO said ”Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8″, which, in my opinion, translates to “we may launch an open-source Internet Explorer, but only to lure in more users to our proprietary platform”.
Regardless of the truth of this rumor, as a Web Designer I’m sure I’d love to see Trident (Internet Explorer’s proprietary rendering engine) banished to the deep fires of hell.