Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) officially launched Internet Explorer 9, the latest iteration of its Internet Explorer browser, at South by Southwest (SXSW) this week. IE9 was first released as a beta in the latter half of last year, and has been downloaded more than 40 million times since. 

Sporting a simpler interface than earlier versions of Internet Explorer, IE9 comes with HTML5 web standards support, better performance and hardware-accelerated graphics. Webmonkey observed that IE9's sleeker user interface is "clearly taking its influence from, and even looks nearly identical to, Google's Chrome web browser."

In the past, critics accused IE9 of cheating in certain benchmarks and accused it of not being a 'modern browser.' On an overall basis though, IE9 represents a major step forward for Microsoft, if not its largest improvement to date. Certainly, business users will appreciate the across-the-board improvements, which include enhancements on the security front. You can check out the official IE9 launch site here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at PC World
- check out this article at CNET
- check out this article at Webmonkey

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