The Principal Program Manager for Microsoft’s Web platform on Windows Phone, Joe Marini said on his twitter feed today that he would be showing off Internet Explorer 9 on his Windows Phone 7 device at South by South West.
When Microsoft first announced the release date for the desktop version of Internet Explorer, Microsoft did state that there would be some Internet Explorer related surprises on the way at SxSW.
Rumors surfaced back in February that the upcoming “Mango” update for Windows Phone 7 due late this year would bring with it Internet Explorer Mobile 9.
Currently, Windows Phone users are using IE Mobile, or better known as IE 7 Mobile, with some IE 8 features added into it. If these sources are correct, Microsoft plans on skipping IE 8 mobile entirely and release a mobile IE 9 HTML5-compliant browser and multi-tasking for third party apps with the "Mango" update.
In the meantime, those of you who want to get your hands on the desktop version of Internet Explorer 9 only have a few hours to wait, as you will be able to download the final version of the popular browser at 9 PM PST. Users who have already downloaded the release candidate version of the browser will automatically be updated to the final version, most likely via Windows Update.