Hot on the heels of Netscape's preview release, Microsoft has described the functionality in its new (Windows-only) Internet Explorer 5.5 beta.

For XML developers, the most interesting aspect of the beta is probably Internet Explorer's use of MSXML3, a much faster and more up-to-date XML parser engine. [Update: MSXML 3 didn't ship with Internet Explorer 5.5, though it can be added as a separate upgrade.]

The rest of the picture isn't as bright, at least from a standards perspective. Microsoft appears to be pushing forward with its own behavior model, which is related to an old draft for CSS3 at the W3C but interacts with the Document Object Model in ways that aren't specified at all by the W3C.

CSS development in general is improved by support for the first-letter and first-line pseudo-elements, as well as vertical text layout, but there's no sign of additional support for the whitespace or display properties that make it possible to create XML layouts that are comparable to HTML. There are, however, new non-standard options for color scrollbars.