Just as he was the first to talk about IE7, Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at the Mix ‘n Mash event here on campus yesterday. Bill was talking to some bloggers about IE.Next and called it IE8, the same way we do here in the IE team hallway.So, yes, the version after IE7 is IE8. We looked at a lot of options for the product name. Among the names we considered and ruled out:
IE 7+1
IE VIII
IE 1000 (think binary)
IE Eight!
iIE
IE for Web 2.0 (Service Pack 2)
IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (the marketing team really pushed for this one 😉
Ie2.079 (we might still use this for the Math Major Edition)
Of course, some people care about other aspects of IE8 much more than they care about the name. As I’ve walked different people through the plan, I’ve gotten “Does it have feature X?” “When is the beta?” “When does it release” and even the more thoughtful “What are you trying to accomplish with this release?”
You will hear a lot more from us soon on this blog and in other places. In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction.
Dean Hachamovitch
General Manager
Taken from http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx