Windows 7 Professional Opera grasps at straws with

Allow me say through the outset that I used to be not a fan of Opera Software;s antitrust sabre-rattling some months back again more than Microsoft;s lack of requirements compliancy with its browser. But Opera;s latest complaints about World wide web Explorer (IE) 8 make Opera search even far more like a organization that;s gone off the deep finish.Hakon Lie, the Chief Technologies Officer of Opera, airs a few of his dissatisfaction with how the new beta of Microsoft;s IE 8 handles the breaking of Internet pages. Lie complains that Microsoft has compatibility mode turned on by default for Intranet internet sites (not Online ones,Windows 7 Professional, mind you). with IE eight Beta 2. And he definitely hates the breaking web page icon that Microsoft displays subsequent to the IE 8 tackle bar; he proposes the Acid-test smiley encounter instead.From Opera;s e-mail to me on August 29:IE eight “breaks with Microsoft;s promise - made just six months ago - to support Web standards by default.“At issue here is the ‘Compatibility View Settings; where all Intranet pages are set to display in compatibility mode. Microsoft is apparently fighting off other browsers from making inroads into the enterprise market.”I, for one, am glad that Microsoft defaults to standards mode with IE 8 for public-facign Internet pages. Microsoft does it in a way that isn;t punishing users who browse non-IE-8-compliant websites or developers who have not updated their web sites to handle Microsoft;s next-generation browser, which is expected to ship this November. If you hit a site that looks or behaves badly with IE 8 Beta two, you can hit the compatibility-view icon (which looks like a broken page, clueing users in about what the icon does).If Microsoft defaulted towards the additional standards-compliant mode with IE eight without providing a way for users to continue to use non-updated web-sites, there;d be mutiny. Why should users or Internet site owners be punished for the fact that Microsoft originally broke requirements compatibility with IE and is now trying to undo that damage for whatever reasons — fear of losing market share, complaints from angry users and developers, or just because it;s the right thing.Opera is portraying Microsoft;s handling of requirements mode as the business being up to its old tricks. But I suspect Opera;s real reason for wanting IE eight to break pages is so that users will throw their hands up in disgust and abandon IE for some other browser.What do you say? Do you think Opera;s complaints have merit? If so, what do you think Microsoft should do to tweak IE 8 before it ships?