Microsoft is looking for a few good men and women. A few good testers to punch holes in their new release of Internet Explorer 8. If you've read this blog or heard the rumors about IE8's potential issues with already-existing applications then you may realize that this is one beta testing period that you want to be a part of.

With IE8, Microsoft has come full-circle on the idea that they need to be standards-compliant with their browser if they intend to maintain their lead in the brower share market. But history is not on their side in this war. Consider my comments from an earlier blog post:

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they will bow to pressure and enforce IE8 to be fully compliant with public web standards. This decision will initially cause web sites everywhere to break, becuase all of which were previously de-tuned to IE7's non-standard-ness. My prediction, based off our recent Vista experience, is that short-sighted IT administrators will quickly (and incorrectly) claim that "IE8 breaks my web apps. Therefore IE8 sucks." IE8's adoption rate will suffer in much the same way as Vista and MIcrosoft again ends up holding the bag.

If your business relies heavily on web-based applications for its daily operations, then you want to be a part of this early testing. By testing your internal apps against IE8 early, you'll have an opportunity to either fix the apps or report your findings to Microsoft.

You've been warned. I want no complaints when IE8 releases that "it sucks" because your corporate apps no longer work...

For more info on the IE8 beta program, check out: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/30/wanted-ie8-beta-testers.aspx