With the World Wide Partner conference kicking off next week it seems quiet a few people are picking that an announcement will be made about ‘Gazelle’, a new web browser being developed by Microsoft.

Web browsers are not something that springs to mind when considering fast, secure environments to run applications. Google are trying to address this by building Chrome and sometime next year ChromeOS. Don’t expect Microsoft to sit quietly and watch Google undertake what is essentially a land grab in the space for cloud based desktop applications. Azure and a hosted version of Microsoft Office will have to satisfy the need for both performance and security without compromising usability. This will require the new approach that Gazelle is rumoured to bring if Microsoft are serious about dominating this space. The battle lines are being draw.

The key difference between Internet Explorer and Gazelle is that Gazelle runs on top of its own ‘Kernel’. Applications then run inside that Kernel and can’t directly access the host PC without calling the Kernel. This will give Microsoft the ability to control the way applications interact with the host and reduces the surface area for attack.

Keep your ears and eyes on Microsoft this week to see if these rumours turn out to be true.

Microsoft Research Paper detailing Gazelle