Microsoft prepares IE 5.5

Microsoft said it would release a trial version of IE 5.5 with improved support for Web standards, including Cascading Style Sheets 1 (CSS) and Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) as well as a Microsoft presentation technology known as DHTML behaviors.

With IE 5.5, Microsoft said it will add a print preview capability and improvements in the speed and reliability of printing.

The next version of Microsoft's consumer operating system, code-named Millennium, includes IE 5.5. That product, released to testers last week, is expected next year.

Microsoft's only significant competition in the browser market, Netscape's Communicator browser, is behind IE by a long shot in standard support and other key technologies. The already late Communicator 5.0 project was further delayed this fall.