But the non-awful modern browser, that won't be called IE.
I came here with the exact same concern as the GP comment.
“We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan..."
It just reeks of marketing double-speak that gets engineers excited, only to find out that they're stuck maintaining code for N + 1 browsers now.
Incidentally, Microsoft rebranding exercises infuriate me. Arguably, Spartan is a "new" product, but by that measure any product rewrite should get a completely new, unrelated name rather than a version number. I remember COM + DispInterfaces ==> ActiveX, Outlook Express ==> MSN Messenger, MSN ==> Bing. It's just irritating and confusing to both developers and consumers.
Rather than it be offered by the operating-system division, they should have the product engineered and marketed by the search engine division. The integration to Bing! should be uncompromising and a genuine step change in usability. This does not have to appeal to the 'power users', however, if it has a few usability tricks that make it more useful for most people in most circumstances then they could do fine with it.
With an integrated approach of browser plus services such as search this browser could be great. As a mere browser it has no USP so I will stick with Chrome (on a Chromebook).
Ummm that's confusing. If you're going to kill it, kill it dead.