Chapter 1: Introducing Internet Explorer 4

During a keynote speech at COMDEX in 1990, Bill Gates – Chairman and CEO of Microsoft – announced the concept of "Information at Your Fingertips" and gave his vision of the future. He painted a picture of the consequences that desktop computer technology would have in many areas of everyday life. Four years later, Bill Gates gave another COMDEX speech updating his original theme. While he talked about the effects of the recent rapid changes in the technology, there was still no reference to what no doubt will cause the biggest revolution in the IT industry since the PC – the Internet.

It wasn't until December 1995 that Microsoft publicly acknowledged the significance of the Internet and announced an overall Internet strategy. Later, in March 1996, Microsoft delivered a promise to produce a comprehensive set of Internet technologies, products and tools at their Professional Developers Conference.While Microsoft joined the Internet game relatively late, they rapidly gained momentum and have since released an incredible range of innovative Internet products. These products have provided users rich Internet experiences and organizations the mechanisms to develop high impact, secure and mission critical Internet solutions.

One of the most powerful and compelling pieces in the Microsoft Internet jigsaw is Internet Explorer – a Web browser offering users an increasingly sophisticated medium for experiencing the Internet.It wasn't until Internet Explorer 3.0 - Microsoft's first ActiveX compliant browser – that there was serious competition for the market leader Netscape's Navigator. However it caught up very fast. IE3 came with a host of other client Internet applications for communications and collaboration with others. Internet Explorer – version 4.0 (IE4 for short) takes it one step further. Without a doubt, the power of IE4 provides the potential to forever change the direction of Internet development. In this chapter we'll give you a quick introduction, in no particular order, to all of the new technologies that go into making up IE4.

• Browser integration with the Desktop – these blur the boundary between desktop, network and Internet.
  
  
• Webcasting and Offline Browsing – allows you to subscribe to web sites and then have updates automatically downloaded to your cache allowing you to browse them off line.
  
  
• The Active Desktop – turns the Windows desktop into a web page.
  
  
• Multimedia Controls - methods of enhancing the sound and graphics on your web pages without requiring third party add-ins.
  
  
• Tools for Communication – there are packages for e-mail, newsgroups, multi-user conferencing facilities and for facilities live download of audio and video.
  
  
• Dynamic HTML – an upgraded version of the language, that allows dynamic manipulation of elements on a web page, without the need for a page refresh.

We'll also take a look at the underlying ActiveX technology that provides much of the power in Internet Explorer 4.0, but first we'll begin by looking at what precipitated the need for a new version of the browser.