Microsoft resurects life into browser by forking Chromium. It should be of no surprise to any Microsoft critics that anything these days coming from Microsoft is doomed at birth, and that Microsoft has to reuse popular software in order to claim any relevance. But Chromium is not just an API or layer, it's a number of such things (almost an OS in itself), and that should get Microsoft employees worried about the fate of it all. I don't think any divide and conquer plot à la Microsoft is going to work. People out there are informed enough to let this happen again.
So here we are with a not-designed-here web browser bound to be used by corporate suits out there for a long time.

As a side note, it makes the life of hackers much easier. Hack through the chrome code tree, and you can phish a ton of people then.