OMFG, I can barely believe I'm writing this blog post - Microsoft are actually going to default IE8 to standards compliant mode...
To say this is good news is an understatement: read the announcement
For the first time ever, all major browsers will favour standards-compliant websites! This is staggeringly good news for web developers and web app vendors as it means we can start ridding ourselves of the constant cruft caused by earlier versions of MSIE and start spending more time on making great web interfaces.
As if that wasn't enough, MS are also looking to improve interoperability. Is the evil empire starting to listen to customers? If so, lots of amazing things are going to happen.