R.I.P

So be it, IE/Mac is dead. After the news that there would not be another standalone version of IE/Windows, that sounded like a logical consequence for the Mac as well. The commitment lasted for about three years.

I want to keep some hope that the death of IE is not the end of Microsoft's web developments on the Mac. The browser has become the visible interface to an underlying engine, that Apple calls WebCore and Microsoft calls Tasman. WebCore drives Safari, Tasman drives IE/Mac and (if I'm not mistaken) in a new incarnation, the latest MSN for Mac OS X. But the browser is not the only interface to render HTML content: Apple Mail does, NetNewsWire does and will make use WebCore, OmniWeb already uses WebCore. This list is far from being exhaustive.

IE is not the only software to make use of Microsoft's web engine. I use Microsoft Entourage on a daily basis and I cannot imagine that my email client be excluded from the web standards pleasures in the long run. I want Entourage to render XHTML/CSS. It should logically leverage the work done to improve the Tasman rendering engine, and that would be a very positive move from Microsoft.

I'm not giving hope on Entourage, then. R.I.P IE/Mac, et vive Tasman!