Microsoft today announced that it expects to bring its Edge web browser to the Mac, possibly as early as next year.

"Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows and on a more frequent cadence. We also expect this work to enable us to bring Microsoft Edge to other platforms like macOS," said Microsoft.

The news was revealed as part of Microsoft's larger announcement that Edge will be rebuilt based on the open source Chromium rendering engine, the same engine used by Google Chrome. Microsoft said it expects to have a preview build of the Chromium-based Edge browser ready in early 2019 for users to try.

However, it's unclear if the preview will initially be limited to Windows or extend to the Mac simultaneously.

Edge succeeded Internet Explorer as Microsoft's default web browser on Windows in 2015, with a mobile version later released for iOS and Android. It will be Microsoft's first web browser on Mac since Internet Explorer for Mac received its last feature update over 15 years ago, in June 2003.

Internet Explorer was the default web browser on Mac between 1998 and 2003, when Apple released Safari on Mac OS X Panther.