Though the creation of the new HTML standard, HTML 5, has been mostly up to four of the big players in the browser world (Apple, Mozilla, Opera and Google), it appears that Microsoft has become more active as of late. CNET reports the news, detailing that Adrian Bateman, Internet Explorer Program Manager, has sent a letter to the World Wide Web Consortium, with Microsoft's thoughts and queries on the current editor's draft.
In the letter, found here, Bateman stated that, "As part of our planning for future work, the IE team is reviewing the current editor's draft of the HTML5 spec and gathering our thoughts. We want to share our feedback and discuss this in the working group. I will post our notes as we collect them so we can iterate on our thinking more quickly. At this stage we have more questions than answers, but I believe that discussing them in public is the best way to make progress." Additionally, Amy Barzdukas, general manager for Internet Explorer, said, "The support of ratified standards (that Web developers) can use is something that we are extremely supportive of. In some cases, it can be premature to start claiming support for standards that are not yet in fact standards."
HTML 5, as you know, brings a whole bunch of excellent new features. If you're under the impression that Microsoft has added none of them, then you're wrong; the Redmond-based company is accountable for ContentEditable, a feature in the new standard, which "lets elements of Web pages be edited in place by people using a browser" according to CNET. To add to this, the latest version of IE, version 8, supports the DOM Store, Ajax Navigation, Cross Document Messaging and Cross Domain Messaging, all HTML 5 components.
It's excellent to see the software giant getting more involved with the standard, as Internet Explorer is by far the most dominant browser on the market today; with that force behind HTML 5, it'll make for a much better experience for users and web developers.
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