IE8 development: Microsoft should learn from Apple, Mozilla
Internet Explorer 8 is set to be Microsoft's most standards compliant browser ever. After originally stating that IE8 would default to the same noncompliant behavior exhibited by IE7, Microsoft relented and plumped for standard-by-default.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's browser reversal caps a months-long arc: IE8 first passed the Acid2 standards test in December 2007, then the company announced its Interoperability Principles in March 2008 while still planning to default to IE7's noncompliant rendering mode. The final call — standards-by-default — follows sustained pressure from Mozilla and web developers who argued that defaulting to legacy behavior would freeze the web to IE's quirks. The stakes are high because IE still commands the dominant share of a browser market Microsoft once froze through its Windows monopoly.
First-order effects
- Web developers get a single rendering target: sites built to standards will work in IE8 without per-browser hacks, cutting the cost of cross-browser testing that has defined the profession since IE6.
- Microsoft trades short-term compatibility for credibility — enterprises relying on IE7-era intranet apps must now opt into compatibility mode explicitly rather than inherit it by default.
Second-order effects
- Mozilla and the WebKit camp lose their most effective talking point ('IE breaks the web'), shifting competition toward performance and features rather than compliance — pressure that shows up later in Microsoft shipping a genuinely modern IE9.
- The 'meta tag' compromise Microsoft floated (opt-in legacy mode) becomes a template other vendors study when balancing backward compatibility against forward progress.
Third-order effects
- If standards-by-default holds as policy, browser competition re-centers on implementation quality — a dynamic that eventually cuts both ways, as Safari's own standards lag would later show. The durable lesson: defaults, not feature lists, determine whether the web platform advances.
- Regulators and developers gain precedent that even a dominant incumbent can be moved on interoperability by coordinated developer pressure — an early data point for treating browser defaults as a competition issue.
The trend: Browser makers are learning that defaulting to open standards — not proprietary quirks — is the price of staying credible as the web platform consolidates around shared specifications.