Within the last hour, CNET News.com has revealed that Microsoft will release a beta of Internet Explorer 7 this Summer. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the new browser version at the RSA Conference 2005 in San Francisco. The beta will be available to users with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Previously Microsoft has said that Internet Explorer updates would only be delivered with Windows upgrades, leading many to anticipate that there would be no IE7 until the release of Longhorn next year. Therefore, Microsoft's announcement of a new IE release decoupled from a Windows revision can be seen as a policy reversal. Analysts suggest that competition from rivals such as Mozilla Firefox may have acted as the catalyst for this change. A Reuters article on eWeek says that IE7 will have "new anti-spyware features".
