An interesting chat with IE veteran Chris Wilson (downloadable MP3 or WMA).
IE should serve as an object lesson in monopolies; when it was competing with Netscape it was innovative and forward-thinking. When Netscape threw in the towel, Microsoft stopped development and the browser stagnated and caused many of the problems we have today. Since the rise of Firefox (and, to a lesser extent, Safari), IE have realised they have to start getting the community back onside by becoming innovative again - although, not with IE7, obviously; that was just a catch-up release.