A: 

IE is known for its problems with transparency in PNGs. There were many topics here regarding that: check for example this one.

RaYell
The url in the post marked as answer has been obsolete.Is there another one?
Shore
A: 

The iepngfix.htc available here supports background positioning. And even makes PNG transparency work in IE5.5!

Ben
A: 

This was useful for me: CSS Opacity in Internet Explorer (IE)

Note the quirks and use use of the CSS "zoom" attribute. YMMV.

pst