IE8: What's After Beta 2?

Since the release of Beta 2,the data from real people about the product has been absorbed. The IE team has combed through instrumentation of over 20 million IE sessions and hundreds of hours of usability lab sessions. Together with IE MVPs, they have scrutinized thousands of threads from user forums and examined the issues that people are raising.

IE teаm will release one more public update of IE8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release. Their next public release of IE indicates the end of the beta period. They want the technical community of people and organizations interested in web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done. They should expect the final product to behave as this update does. They want them to test their sites and services with IE8, make any changes they feel are necessary for the best possible customer experience using IE8, and report any critical issues (e.g., issues impacting robustness, security, backwards compatibility, or completeness with respect to planned standards work). The plan is to deliver the final product after listening for feedback about critical issues.

They will be very selective about what changes they make between the next update and final release act on the most critical issues.