Microsoft May Use Apple's WebKit engine for IE

TG Daily - Microsoft considers WebKit transplant for Internet Explorer

Microsoft has long used its own proprietary rendering engine for its venerable Windows Internet Explorer browser, but this strategy is becoming quite long in the tooth compared to the much faster, more modern, and open-source Gecko engine used in Mozilla Firefox. Now comes a stunning piece of news from Steve Ballmer : "the company may consider moving IE to the open-source WebKit browser engine." WebKit is a rendering platform originally developed by Apple, and is used in the Apple Safari browser. So if this switch did indeed happen, we'd not only have a IE+Safari hybrid (OMG!), but also a major change in Microsoft's closed-source-centric ideology.

Most importantly, though, users would likely see a vast improvement in the functionality and quality of IE - something much needed these days, especially when one compares the anemic IE7 (and even IE8) to its current competitors, like Firefox 3 and Opera 9.