Microsoft nixes '-webkit' prefix for IE Mobile for Windows Phone 7

It seemed like a good idea to some Microsoft developers (for a brief moment): Why not add support for both the -ms and -webkit prefixes in the version of the Internet Explorer (IE) mobile browser Microsoft was building for Windows Phone 7 devices?

It turns out the idea was a bad one. And it took Microsoft a single day to change its path, as documented in two back-to-back blog posts on the “IE for Windows Phone Team” blog.

A quick bit of background: Webkit is the rendering engine at the heart of a number of browsers, including those from Apple, Google, Nokia and RIM, among others. Microsoft uses its own rendering engine, known as Trident, inside Internet Explorer. When browser developers implement an experimental or proprietary CSS property, they prefix it with the appropriate “vendor prefix.”

On May 10, in a post entitled “JavaScript and CSS changes in IE Mobile for Windows Phone 7,” Windows Phone Principal Program Manager Joe Marini explained Microsoft’s plans for adding two prefixes to the version of IE (a hybrid of IE 7 and 8) that it is building for Windows Phone 7.

Source -
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-nixes-webkit-prefix-for-ie-mobile-for-windows-phone-7/6173?

Posted By: JMH
13 May 2010