Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009, the industry's largest and most important annual gathering of CIOs and their senior IT leaders is taking place this week in Orlando, Florida.

During this year’s event, which will focus on how business technology can help customers return to growth by balancing cost optimization and risk mitigation, Microsoft will be helping customers to understand how they can realize the benefits of Windows 7 through the following activities and sessions:

Windows 7 Early Adopter Customer Panel: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009   12:30PM - 1:30PM ET (Moderated by Michael A. Silver - Gartner)

A panel of Windows 7 early adopters will discuss Windows 7 planning, deployment tips and rollout plans. During the panel, attendees will share their experience on planning for a successful deployment and the immediate results they received deploying Windows 7. Featured Gartner Research VP & Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver will facilitate the panel discussion. Please visit Gartner.com for a replay of this webcast on October 22nd.

Windows 7 Unplugged-- Tips From Microsoft's CIO Office: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 2:00Pm - 2:20PM ET (Rick Merrifield - Microsoft)

In this interactive session, the Chief Architect in Microsoft’s IT department will share insider tips on how to plan, pilot and rollout Windows 7. Learn how your organization can benefit from applying the Windows Optimized Desktop to increase end user productivity, enhance security and reduce costs by automating IT management.

Windows Optimized Desktop-- Windows 7 and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack: Wednesday, October 21st  3:30PM -4:30pm ET (Gavriella Schuster - Microsoft)

The Windows Optimized Desktop is designed to help with today’s imminent IT challenges while ensuring your future success. Come learn how Microsoft Windows 7 and the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2009 R2 together provide better user productivity, stronger data protection, security and PC management and automation improvements that can help you  save costs and improve IT efficiency.

Mastermind Keynote with Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division Thursday,  October 22nd 11:00am - 11:45am (Moderated by Neil MacDonald and Brian Gammage - Gartner)

Gartner analysts Neil MacDonald and Brian Gammage will moderate an interview with Stephen on a variety of topics top of mind for Symposium attendees. As president of the Microsoft Business Division, Stephen oversees the Information Worker, Microsoft Business Solutions and Unified Communications Groups here at Microsoft and is a member of the company's senior leadership team that sets overall strategy and direction for the company.

Windows 7 Hand On Labs— Monday, October 19th - Thursday,  October 22nd Various times (Various presenters)

30 minute, proctor led, interactive sessions where attendees can experience the following features of Windows 7: Windows 7 UI features, Internet Explorer 8 & Web Slices, Problem Steps Recorder, Med-V (using Internet Explorer to launch a Med-V web site), and using BitLocker which will include a 1GB key drive to activate BitLocker as a giveaway, with pre-loaded content including the current product guide and the Microsoft Optimized Desktop datasheet.

Today, we are announcing that we are extending the Browser for the Better Campaign with Internet Explorer 8. We will continue to help fight hunger by donating 8 meals for every download of Internet Explorer 8 throughout the month of September. September is Hunger Action Month.

We want to encourage our customers to upgrade to a modern and secure browser – so we are doubling donations for people who switch from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8 through this campaign. If you move from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8, we will donate 16 meals to help fight hunger!

For more information, see this press release from Feeding America.

Today on Day 2 of MIX09, Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch during his keynote this morning in Las Vegas announced the availability of the final release of Internet Explorer 8 to download and install on their PCs.

Click here to download Internet Explorer 8!

Internet Explorer 8 is available for the following Windows releases: Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista (RTM), SP1 and SP2.

With Internet Explorer 8, common tasks on the Web are faster and easier. I’d like to take a moment and highlight how I am using Internet Explorer 8 today to quickly accomplish tasks that important to me. It all starts with my favorite Internet Explorer 8 feature – the Favorites Bar. The Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8 gives people quick access to information such as their top favorites and Web Slices.

On my Favorites Bar, I have Web Slices from partners such as Digg and The New York Times and of course Live Search (see my post on Live Search Web Slices). These Web Slices give me one click access to the latest news, weather, and traffic as I browse the Web. I never have to leave a webpage I’m on to view information from these Web Slices. When a Web Slice is updated, the slice on the Favorites Bar becomes bold. You can install Web Slices from The New York Times from this blog post from their First Look Blog and the Digg Web Slice can be installed by visiting Digg.com.

The Favorites Bar isn’t just a place for people to put their favorite Web Slices. In Internet Explorer 8, you can subscribe to an RSS feed and add it to your Favorites Bar.

With both RSS feeds and Web Slices on my Favorites Bar, I feel I am able to access important bits of information much quicker and easier.

The Favorites Bar is great at giving me information I want and keeping me up-to-date with things. But sometimes I need to quickly find something that’s not in my Favorites Bar. That’s where Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search Box and Accelerators come in.

Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search Box can provide Search Suggestions as you type in your search. When I search for “Windows” in Wikipedia, an Internet Explorer Search Provider, it provides me with suggestions (you’ll also note Instant Search also searches my History too).

Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search also provides Visual Search. For example I am looking for some Zune accessories for my Zune 80. I want a dock for my Zune 80 for my office here in Redmond. Because just like with Wikipedia, I have Amazon.com as a Search Provider in Internet Explorer 8, I can search Amazon.com for Zune accessories and actually see the products.

 

Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 can also be a huge help in finding information you need – directly off a webpage.

Yesterday evening I was invited to a little meet up in downtime Seattle at a place called Spitfire Grill. I’m not too familiar with downtown Seattle yet so I had no idea where this place was. With Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 such as Live Search Maps, to find out where this place was real easy. All I needed to do was go to the Spitfire Grill website, select their address, click the blue Accelerator button that appears and choose “Map with Live Search” and a pop-out map appeared showing me where it was.

There are many Accelerators available today – including a Find on eBay Accelerator or a Find on Facebook Accelerator.

Accelerators aren’t necessarily just for finding information on a webpage. They can be used for sharing information on a webpage, or simply a webpage, too. My two favorite Accelerators I use to share information are the Share on Facebook Accelerator and fellow Microsoftie Adam Kinney’s Send to FriendFeed Accelerator. Both these Accelerators let me share webpages I find interesting that I would like other folks to check out.

So in closing, Internet Explorer 8 truly lets me do common tasks on the Web easier and faster. And because of it, I feel much more efficient. You should definitely go download Internet Explorer 8 today and give it a shot.

Feel free to share with me you favorite Web Slices, Search Providers or Accelerators in comments. Dig in at the Internet Explorer 8 Add-ons Gallery after you get Internet Explorer 8 installed.

And if you’re interested in how Internet Explorer 8 stacks up from a performance standpoint, I suggest reading this blog post and watching the following video:

IE8 Performance

As any browser vendor will quickly point out, accurately measuring the performance of a browser is extremely complex. On the surface, testing performance seems quite easy… visit a few sites with one browser and then again with a different browser, and simply time how long it took to load the page.

In reality, it’s much more complex than that.

Many things need to be taken into account when comparing the page load performance of different browsers. For example, due to the constantly changing nature of the Internet it is not easy to tell if the exact same content was delivered to each browser for each test. ISP’s, routers, and cable modems often cache their content, meaning that the page being loaded isn’t always coming all the way from the web server. The amount of network traffic can easily change between tests. All of these things (and more) can dramatically effect page load times.

Unfortunately, tools to accurately benchmark browser page load times don’t exist. All of the existing browser benchmarking tools available today are either narrow in their scope (SunSpider, Celtic Kane), inaccurate (iBench), or don’t consider important factors such as network latency, network congestion, and caching.

In the absence of effective benchmarking tools the Internet Explorer Team created a real world test which took the above mentioned factors into consideration and created a level playing field for all browsers tested. The results when comparing Internet Explorer 8 page load times to Firefox and Chrome were captured on video:

IE8 Performance

The performance video visually compares page load times between IE8, FF, and Chrome. Of the top 25 most popular sites in the world, IE8 wins 48% of the time, Chrome wins 38% 36% of the time, and FF only wins 16% of the time. Of course, they didn’t cherry pick the sites they tested. They chose the top 25 sites as reported by ComScore in December 2008. 

We encourage (and expect) people to run their own tests to measure page load times and for the browser industry at large to create a test that can accurately measure page load times – as seen by the user – across browsers. To assist people in running their own tests the Internet Explorer Team has also created a whitepaper which describes techniques that can be used to contend with some of the complex issues mentioned above.

For more information on Internet Explorer 8, visit www.microsoft.com/ie8.

UPDATED 6:16pm Pacific Time: Corrected percentage numbers to accurately reflect data from whitepaper.

Just like with the Windows 7 Beta, I thought it would be nice to take a look at what people have been saying about Release Candidate 1 of Internet Explorer 8.

Dana Wollman from LAPTOP says:

The last time we tested IE 8, it was often—but not always—faster than Firefox 3. This time around, it blew Firefox out of the water, along with Google Chrome.

Joe Wilcox from Microsoft Watch says this:

IE 8 is the most significant upgrade to the browser family in more than a decade—not since IE 4, I say. This is the version you want to download, try and adopt.

Preston Gralla from Computerworld says this:

IE8 is clearly nearly ready for release. RC1 is stable and fast, and it contains a full feature set.

From SuperSite for Windows, Paul Thurrott says this:

...IE 8 RC1 is a solid upgrade over the previous Beta 2 release, and points to a solid final release. If you're already using a previous beta version, you should snag RC1 immediately. And if you're curious about the future of Windows Web browsers, you could do a lot worse than IE 8 RC1: Even in prerelease form, it's a solid, dependable browser. Recommended.

Anthony Ha from VentureBeat says:

All in all, this sounds like a cool package, not just a facelift. At the very least, I can say that the new browser includes some compelling concepts that could help Microsoft hold on to its insanely high market share, and perhaps even reverse its decline against competitors like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari.

Michael Muchmore from PC Magazine says this:

...I really like what Microsoft has done with Internet Explorer, and, in this late prerelease version, looks ready to give our Editors' Choice Web browser, Firefox 3, a real run for its money. The new browsing conveniences, tab behavior, security protections, and standards support offer a potent combo.

And from InformationWeek, J. Nicholas Hoover says:

Microsoft has come a long way with IE8 by pushing performance barriers, embracing Web standards, and adding a few new features.

If you haven’t already, download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 today from http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

Have you ever been browsing the web and suddenly realized that you need to quickly check the weather, the traffic, or stock price for some company? With Internet Explorer 8 you can get all of that information, and much more, without ever having to navigate to another site or leave the page you are on. We call it a Web Slice. With Live Search and Internet Explorer 8, you can have quick access to this kind of information and more.

So what are Web Slices exactly? Web Slices bring the user’s favorite data directly into the Internet Explorer 8’s Favorites Bar, making it instantly available wherever the user goes on the Web. The screenshot below shows a Web Slice for tracking the weather for Seattle:

Instead of having to repeatedly visit websites to check for updated information, Web Slices allow people using Internet Explorer 8 to keep track of information from within a webpage right from the Favorites Bar. When a website has a Web Slice, users will be notified a Web Slice exists within that page in several ways:

 

A green Web Slice icon will appear in the Internet Explorer Toolbar (where the RSS feed icon usually is) notifying you that the webpage you are on has a Web Slice. As you move your mouse through the webpage, when you mouse over an area of the webpage that has the Web Slice, the Web Slice icon will also appear. This is because as I mentioned above, Web Slices are snippets of information within a webpage.

Today, Live Search provides several really neat Web Slices (that ties in with search results) that allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest information on local weather, traffic, top headlines, and stocks as you browse the web.

Live Search Weather Web Slice: When searching weather for a specific city or town in Live Search, the results provided show the current weather for that city or town and the forecast for the next 4 days. These results are also offered as a Web Slice which can be added to your Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8.

For example, if I search “weather Seattle” in Live Search, I get the current weather and 4-day forecast for Seattle. I can add to this Web Slice to my Favorites Bar and stay on top of the weather for Seattle. The Web Slice will regularly update with the latest weather information.

A screenshot for the Live Search Weather Web Slice can be seen above.

TIP: You can right click on a Web Slice on the Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8 to “refresh” a specific Web Slice or all Web Slices to get up-to-date information.

Live Search Traffic Web Slice: This one is my personal favorite. In Live Search if you search on traffic for a specific city (like Seattle), you are given the latest traffic for that city in your results. These traffic results are also a Web Slice which can be added to your Favorites Bar. If you live in your browser – this could be a great way to stay up on traffic (and when it might be a good time to leave work!).

Please note that this Web Slice (and traffic results in Live Search) is only available for select cities that offer traffic data. If you search for traffic for your city or town and the search results don’t offer up any traffic then it is likely Live Search does not have traffic data for your city.

TIP: You can grab a specific Web Slice on your Favorites Bar and drag it left or right and change the order Web Slices and Favorites are displayed on your Favorites Bar.

Live Search Top Stories Web Slice: Stay on top of the top stores from Live Search! When you go to Live Search News, you can add the Top Story Web Slice to your Favorites Bar. It also works with specific search topics (like Windows 7) under Live Search News too.

Live Search Finance Web Slice: Just like with weather, you can search for stock results on a specific company on Live Search. The financial results for that company can be added to your Favorites Bar as a Web Slice.

TIP: You can grab the corner of the expanded Web Slice and make it bigger.

I hope you find these Web Slices useful! There are many other Web Slices available that do a variety of things – such as the eBay Web Slice that lets you track eBay auctions. In the next couple weeks I’ll be talking more about Web Slices and the Favorites Bar.

Last week we made available Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for folks to download. If you haven’t already, download it from http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

To get even more Web Slices for Internet Explorer 8, head on over http://www.ieaddons.com!