Posting from Las Vegas ... One of the most interested observers of Internet Explorer 8 is Opera Software, the Norwegian-based browser maker, which filed an antitrust complaint over the Microsoft browser with the European Commission. Via e-mail today, I asked Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's chief technology officer, for his take on the preliminary version of the new Microsoft browser. His response:

Let me start with the beta version of IE8, which I have just tried myself. I was happy to see that it passes the Acid2 test by default. Congratulations to the IE8 team which has created a browser that has significantly better support for standards than the previous version.

The joy that people are expressing about standards-related improvements in IE8 today also shows how starved we have been for good news from Microsoft in the past. As the dominant browser, Microsoft must act responsibly and this includes implementing commonly agreed-upon standards and fixing bugs. They have not always done so, but this week's announcement and the release of the IE8 beta is an important step in the right direction.

It was interesting to see that Microsoft gave a legal reason for their most recent turnaround. Certainly, I believe Opera's filing with the European Commission has influenced Microsoft's decision to do the right thing.

We have brought up several technical issues in IE in our discussions with the European Commission, and only two of them have been partly addressed. Here is our list:

1) Fully comply with Acid2 and Acid3, by default. Acid2 is a well-known test and the follow-up Acid3 has just been finalized. The tests must be passed by default.

2) Support the specifications underlying the Acid tests. The Acid tests are written to help browser vendors who act in good faith, and they do not guarantee compliance with the underlying specifications. Microsoft must commit to implementing the underlying specifications of the Acid2 and Acid3 tests.

3) Provide documentation. Lack of documentation on how IE implements standards has been a problem for web developers. For each specification Microsoft implements, it must provide a detailed list of limitations, bugs and extensions.

4) Drop version targeting. Documents that trigger standards mode in IE6 or IE7 shall continue to trigger standards mode in the future. No new magic switches can be introduced.

5) Commit to interoperability. It is important to ensure that Microsoft remains committed to supporting web standards, even beyond Acid2 and Acid3. If two or more major web browsers, in official shipping versions, add standards-related functionality (a) generally considered useful to the progress of the Web, and (b) described in a publicly available specification, Microsoft must add the same functionality.

IE8, by supporting Acid2 and triggering standards mode like other browsers, partly addresses #1 and #4. The other point remains. I hope that Microsoft will continue to have a constructive attitute, that they will work with other browser vendors to support Acid3, and that they commit to interoperability.

The result will be a better web for all of us.

See this post on Microsoft's IE Blog for more on the IE8 beta.