sentence: microsoft announced on july 29 , 1996 that it would develop a native version of ie for '' solaris and other popular variants of unix '' to be available '' by the end of 1996 '' which would have '' equivalent functionality as that provided in microsoft internet explorer 3.0 '' , thus '' delivering on its commitment to provide full-featured web browser support on all major operating system platforms '' as well as '' supporting and promoting open standards , including html , activex and java '' .