Microsoft doesn't have to develop the successor of Internet Explorer, Project Spartan, all by itself. The developer of the Windows operating system reports on its website it has started to partner with another software giant, Adobe. The company behind Photoshop and Illustrator will mainly assist in the graphical features of Project Spartan.
Since Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the company is doing things differently. Where the techgiant previously mainly developed everything in house and kept it behind closed doors, the company is now more open and works with partners. Microsoft also hopes to add more partners to Project Spartan on short term. Nevertheless, the new browser will remain closed source unlike the open sourced engines of Chrome, Safari and Firefox.
Project Spartan was announced last autumn and should become the default browser in Windows 10. It's unclear what that means for the future of Internet Explorer, but for now it appears the browser will coexist with Spartan in Windows 10. The first hands-on with a Spartan preview disappointed.
