IE8 public beta now available

It's going to be a busy six months for web teams, addressing WCAG 2.0 (the new W3C Accessibility Guidelines) and the release of Internet Explorer 8.

For those who want to stay ahead of the game (like me), the second IE8 beta is now available for public download here.

As I've now switched almost totally to Firefox for home use (due to it's superior Australian English spell checker, ability to resume a session after a PC crash, better support for plug-ins and superior adherence to web standards) and therefore have limited need for IE7 on my laptop, I'm about to give IE8 a try.

It will be very interesting to see how some leading sites (including those I manage) function.

I expect that there will be a rapid take-up for IE8 by home users, up to 35% of the market in the first three months (I'll allude back to this post three months after launch!)

Any organisation who isn't ready for either the IE8 or WCAG 2.0 shift runs the risk of having their website become less accessible to the market.

That's food for thought when there's a legal obligation to meet accessibility guidelines.