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IE releases are still tied to the years long windows ship cycle

Are you saying that IE 9 won't ship until Windows 8 ships? Because what I'v read shows IE 9 shipping in 2011 and Windows 8 in 2012.

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If we're going to jump into that line of thought: Vista shipped 3 years late and with half of the "cool" features stripped out. I think the IE 9 team has something to prove now, and it's obvious Microsoft is making a push in making IE not suck.