[bluesnowmonkey]

> The goal with IE9 is to provide Windows with a as good as possible browser.

That doesn't ring true. We already have four other excellent web browsers on Windows, as mentioned by the article. All are relatively similar in terms of features and under active development by great teams. At best, Microsoft could only hope to very marginally improve on what already is available for free. So a nice standards-compliant IE9 will not make Windows any more or less attractive an OS than it already is.

Browsers are expensive and onerous to create. What could Microsoft's motivation possibly be to produce one for free, besides embrace-and-extend?

[shin_lao]

Browser is too strategic, you can't allow a third party to develop the one on your platform.