Microsoft plans to offer one more public test version of Internet Explorer 8 before releasing the final version of the updated browser, the company said late Wednesday.
The next test, essentially a “release candidate” version will come in the first quarter of 2009. That means the final release won’t hit Microsoft’s initial goal of finishing the browser this year. “Our next public release of IE (typically called a “release candidate”) indicates the end of the beta period,” general manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog posting, “We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in Web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done.”