Microsoft's IE 8.0: More than just vaporware

When I mentioned in a post yesterday that I had heard there was an alpha build of Internet Explorer (IE) 8.0 circulating inside Microsoft, some were skeptical.

But over on Microsoft's Channel 9 site, Bruce Morgan, a software development manager on the IE team, who describes his job as "lead(ing) the Vista RSS platform, IE UX (user experience), and IE setup teams at Microsoft," confirmed that builds of the next version of IE do, indeed, exist.

In a thread on Channel 9's Coffeehouse, Morgan said:

"We have post-IE7 daily builds running, of course, because that's part of our engineering processes. We're working on improving those processes as well as doing planning for the next version. So sure, people have builds. That's no big thing - certainly nothing anyone would label 'an alpha'."

I don't know about you, but Microsoft's testing terminology seems a tad confusing. Is a working build that hasn't been released to outside testers an alpha? A pre-alpha? Does a Community Technology Preview (CTP) build qualify as an alpha? Or something between an alpha and beta?

Bottom line: IE 8 may be a year or two away. But it's not complete vaporware.

Update: On a related note, Microsoft says it just hit the 100 million mark for IE 7 installations.