February 15, 2005
In his Keynote speech at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Bill Gates said: "Internet Explorer 7.0 will add new levels of security to Windows XP SP2 while maintaining the level of extensibility and compatibility that customers have come to expect. Internet Explorer 7.0 will also provide even stronger defenses against phishing, malicious software and spyware."
According to Gates we will see a beta release of Internet Explorer 7 this summer.
No release date have been made public, nor have much asked for features such as tabbed-browsing been announced (although tabs are widely expected to be included). It is also unclear if Internet Explorer 7 will be made available for Windows 2000.