Microsoft to ship Nashville browser

Microsoft expects to ship its Windows add-in Web browser, code-named Nashville, as Internet Explorer 4.0 at the end of this year, according to industry news service Newsbytes.

Rob Bennett, Windows product manager for Microsoft, speaking at the Microsoft Explorer 96 Conference in Boston, said the new extension to the Windows NT/Windows 95 shell will also interface with Microsoft Access 97.

Meanwhile, Microsoft will release the Explorer 3.0 Web browser, now in beta, later this summer, Bennett said. Platforms for version 3.0 will include Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, Macintosh, and Unix.

Version 4.0 "will do much more" than 3.0. "You've heard about Nashville? Well, this is it," the Windows product manager said. Microsoft's 32-bit Windows add-in will include the ability to create a custom Web browser.

Version 4.0 will allow Web, Microsoft Word, and Access 97 documents to run simultaneously on either the browser or Windows NT or 95, with all three document types having the same appearance.