SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Contradicting an earlier statement that it would not release a new IE version before the next major update to Windows (code-named Longhorn) was ready, Microsoft has announced that the company will ship an update of its IE browser separately from the next major version of Windows.Departing from the longstanding policy of releasing new versions of IE only as new versions of Windows become available, Bill Gates made the announcement at the 2005 RSA Security Conference in San Francisco earlier this week.

Gates acknowledged what many have been debating for some time – that the browser itself is a security risk. “Browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability,” Gates said.

The new IE version is designed to work with Windows XP Service Pack 2, an enhanced security update for the operating system that was released last summer.

Analysts attribute Microsoft’s change in policy to the advent and popularity of the Mozilla Firefox browser, which in recent months, helped nudge IE’s market share to below the 90 percent mark, for the first time since the browser wars of the 90’s.

No specific release date for the new IE has yet been announced. A test version has been promised by summer, but Microsoft remained vague about specific plans for the release of the final IE 7.

“Yes, we have a date in mind,” wrote Dean Hachamovitch, who heads Microsoft’s IE team, in the company’s IE blog, in a posting dated Tuesday. “I’ll talk about the date after we get feedback from customers and partners. We’re going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We’ll ship when the product is ready.”

Bart Decrem, a founding member of the Mozilla Foundation, doesn’t appear to be worried. “I can’t think of a better validation for the success of Firefox,” said Decrem. “The success of Firefox is forcing Microsoft to improve IE. The only surprise is that it took them this long to make that announcement.”