LAS VEGAS — MSIE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch has answered the question of whether or not the next release of Microsoft's market-leading Internet Explorer browser will support HTML5 — with his demonstration of the software at the MIX10 designers and developers conference in Las Vegas.

"When we started looking deeply at HTML5, we saw that it enabled a whole new class of applications," Hachamovitch said at the conference. "These applications will stress the browser runtime and hardware as today's sites just don't."

"We quickly realized that doing HTML5 right, our intent, was more about designing around what HTML5 applications will need rather than a particular set of features," Hachamovitch added. "Done right, HTML5 applications will feel more like real apps than web pages."

Hachamovitch says that the company's approach to HTML5 is to take existing web patterns that are familiar to developers and enhance them by taking advantage of the PC hardware through Windows.

"We planned IE 9 from the ground up to enable professional-grade HTML5 on modern hardware," he offered.

Discussing IE 9's need for high-performance, from powerful script handling to efficient systems integration, Hachamovitch expressed surprise at the level of discussion that still surrounds IE 6 — software released in 2001 and that has had several significant upgrades since — free upgrades the company has encouraged for years.

Getting back to HTML5 and IE 9, Hachamovitch told the audience that HTML5 applications need great performance and that what is important is to look at the entire system when thinking about browser performance. One area he addressed is the need to make JavaScript run faster, by using modern PC hardware to its fullest and through the implementation of the Chakra engine.

"Now, 'Chakra' is different from other JavaScript engines," Hachamovitch said, adding that it compiles JavaScript in the background on a separate CPU core, in parallel with the IE process. "So, your dual- or quad-core machine is put to good use running the web faster, without having to make any changes to your pages or code."

"Compiling in the background puts hardware to use here without having to recode the site, he continued. "And the key here is to bring the best technology to the most important language you use, JavaScript."

Hachamovitch said that IE 9 is standards-complaint, but that it also supports a range of other capabilities needed to help HTML5 reach its full potential. He demonstrated a variety of common design elements that can be problematic for cross-browser designers — including variable opacity, rounded corners, and CSS3 compatibility — displaying the same code in IE 9, as well as in several other popular browsers.

Using all this power, however, requires power — GPU-powered HTML5.

"HTML5 applications will push the limits of graphical richness and interactivity," Hachamovitch concluded. "IE 9 will run HTML5 applications better by taking advantage of PC hardware through Windows. We call this GPU-powered HTML5."

You can download the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview from Microsoft and check out these new features today.