This about face marks a change from their previous stance which would have been to render pages exactly as IE7 did, and only render pages in their super-duper-standards-compliant mode if a special META tag were present (or HTML 5 doctype were supplied).
This is, for many reasons, amazing news. For the first time in, well, ever, Microsoft is taking an extremely strong stance on pushing the envelope on the web in a way that doesn’t alienate it’s biggest proponents. From their press release1 released today:
“This is obviously a complex issue, with important considerations on both sides,” Ozzie said. “On one hand, there are literally billions of Web pages designed to render on previous browser versions, including many sites that are no longer actively managed. On the other hand, there is a concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly accepted standards as they evolve. After weighing these very legitimate concerns, we have decided to give top priority to support for these new Web standards. In keeping with the commitment we made in our Interoperability Principles of being even more transparent in how we support standards in our products, we will work with content publishers to ensure they fully understand the steps we are taking and will encourage them to use this beta period to update their sites to transition to the more current Web standards supported by IE8.”
1: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/mar08/03-03WebStandards.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases
Posted by Clint Ecker 