Microsoft Releases New Preview of Microsoft.com

This week Microsoft released a beta preview of its upcoming website redesign. The new look and feel is much different than what's currently on the Redmond giant's homepage. What are the significant changes, and will they improve Microsoft's site?

Users who are familiar with Microsoft.com will notice that the new site sports a right-hand navigation menu. Microsoft obviously doesn't believe the left-hand navigation myth. Another change that is readily apparent is the use of images when browsing. For instance, clicking on the "Software & Services" link produces a new layer with images of products such as Windows, Office, and Games & Xbox. From there, one can drill down on an image to get a refined result set; Developer Tools leads to images for MSDN, Visual Studio, and so on. Microsoft has also used its in-house tools wisely, enabling AJAX-style navigation so that we don't have to wait during postbacks.

Full Story: http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/7/24/4750
The new preview site can be found here: http://preview.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx
Though Firefox users will not be able to access the site!