Since Satya Nadella ascended to the CEO role at Microsoft, he’s made a very public effort to position the company as a mobile- and cloud-friendly entity, not to mention something of an underdog in the fight against Apple and Google. Nadella and his executives know that the key to seizing market-share in both mobile and the cloud is to create platforms that third-party developers actually want to use, including tools that allow them to effectively test and verify products before launch. At the same time, Microsoft wants to reverse Internet Explorer’s declines in market-share against Google Chrome, Firefox and other browsers. Click here for Microsoft-related jobs. In light of all that, Microsoft’s decision to launch an Internet Explorer Developer Channel makes total sense. The Channel will give developers the chance to see and test Microsoft Web platform features before they reach the broader public; It can even run independently of Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). “IE Developer Channel also comes with support for the emerging WebDriver standard through which Web developers can write tests to automate Web browsers to test their sites,” read a note on Microsoft’s IEBlog. “It’s a programmable remote control for developing complex user scenarios and running them in an automated fashion in your Web site and browser.” In addition, Microsoft is tweaking the F12 Developer Tools available in IE11, including improvements to debugging, boosted analytics capabilities and more keyboard shortcuts and header notifications. More Developer Channel features are reportedly forthcoming.

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