The rest of the world may not care about the name of the future IE version (and, given the browser’s descending market share, more and more people don’t care about the product altogether), it seems that the Microsoft team thought about several alternatives.

Several of them are mentioned in a recent blog posting over at the official Internet Explorer blog. According to Microsoft’s Dean Hachamovitch, these are some of the alternatives:

– IE 7+1
– IE VIII
– IE 1000 (think binary)
– IE Eight!
– iIE
– IE for Web 2.0 (Service Pack 2)
– IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (the marketing team really pushed for this one 😉
– Ie2.079 (we might still use this for the Math Major Edition)

On the other hand, everyone was interested on what new features would be added to the new version. Unfortunately, this chapter was still kept in the X-Files cabinet in Redmond and no information has been made available. Microsoft reps promised that more details on the new browser will be made available next March during the MIX conference.

In the mean time, Hachamovitch adds, “please don’t mistake silence for inaction.”