This is great news for SVG enthusiasts. The following SVG demo will now work in the vast majority of web browsers including IE9:
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/35SVG--oids/Default.xhtml

I, for one, have been waiting for SVG support in IE for many years. Recently I was worried that IE9 might come with Canvas support but no SVG. The opposite is just happening, and this makes my day.

While many lament the lack of Canvas support, I believe that SVG support is more important than Canvas because SVG can do everything that Canvas does with the additional benefit of being fully integrated in the DOM, enabling DOM events in particular that are a mess to implement with Canvas.

The Faster JavaScript engine, now on par with Google Chrome and Safari, in combination with SVG support will allow the development of the most sophisticated web applications - aka Rich Internet Applications - without requiring plugins such as Flash or Silverlight.

Good support of CSS3 is also expected which will also makes the life of web designers significantly less painful.

My only regret is the lack of Windows XP support, which will be a problem considering the very large XP user base that will not upgrade and will continue to live for at least 5 years.