Remember the browser wars?  Resistance to open web standards, and “best viewed in Internet Explorer.”  Remember “polluted java?”  Here are paragraphs that caught my eye from ars technica’s overview of Google Wave.

In September, Google released Chrome Frame, a plugin for Internet Explorer that makes it possible for Microsoft’s browser to use Chrome’s rendering engine. Microsoft was not happy about this sudden but inevitable betrayal. Google later revealed that Wave was one of the catalysts that compelled them to launch the Chrome Frame project.

The developers behind the Wave project struggled to make Wave work properly in Microsoft’s browsers, but eventually determined that the effort was futile. Internet Explorer’s mediocre JavaScript engine and lack of support for emerging standards simply made the browser impossible to accommodate. In order to use Wave, Internet Explorer users will need to install Chrome Frame.

While we are on the subject I highly recommend the ars technica piece on Google Wave.  In addition to lots of detail on the technology and implementation, it talks about Google’s commitment to open standards, open source, and decentralization.  I came away less worried.

I have not been invited yet to try the beta.