Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) took a step closer to releasing its new mobile browser today, after releasing technical information to developers at its TechEd conference in Europe. In a blog post, the company said that Internet Explorer Mobile 6 will be available soon on new Windows Mobile devices, and will provide an experience that more closely resembles desktop browsing. Some of the features include: improved fidelity for full desktop rendering; text wrapping to accommodate a mobile screen, Flash Lite support, touch and gesture support, and multiple zoom levels.

Microsoft has been working on the browser for some time, and it couldn’t come a moment too soon. On Tuesday, Opera launched a new version of its very popular mobile browser, which among other things improved support for YouTube and allows for sharing of notes and bookmarks between cellphones and PCs. Other companies working on browsers are: SkyFire, Mozilla and maybe even Google’s Chrome.

But it’s yet to be seen whether developers will embrace Microsoft’s browser, which requires some participation on their end, but then at the same time is the mainstream browser for the PC. If the comments on the blog post are any indication of whether it will be a success, it’s not a good start. Many people were concerned about what technology Microsoft was using, including igalan, who wrote: “I don’t want to sound harsh, but bringing the engine of Internet Explorer 6 back from 2001 doesn’t seem like a good deal to me….It doesn’t make much sense to me asking developers to download this engine and test their current 2008-2009 code against a 2001 browser and bringing back the problems we had with it.” In response, a Windows Mobile team member named Khush tried addressing the concerns, while also being upfront about some of its limitations. He said the browser, which will the launch by the first quarter, won’t be available as a download or update to current phones. On the underlying issue of using IE 6, he wrote: “Although this release is called Internet Explorer Mobile 6, there are components from other versions of Internet Explorer for the desktop. One example of that is the support for Jscript v5.7 which we brought over from Internet Explorer 8 for the desktop.”

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