Internet Explorer's Falling Market Share Could Spell Trouble
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Is Internet Explorer in trouble? And if so, can IE 9 swoop to the rescue? New data from Net Applications suggests that Internet Explorer's market share took a slight dip between August and September, from 60.4 percent to 59.65 percent. By contrast, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome all experienced slight gains. Chrome's looking like Internet Explorer's biggest short-term threat, given a.) the Google browser's steady rise over the past several quarters will likely continue, and b.) Google apparently plans on integrating the browser into a number of upcoming products, including Google TV and netbook computers using Chrome OS. If any of those products prove a sizable hit, then that could add fuel to Chrome's overall acceleration. In the longer term, though, Internet Explorer's market share has undergone a steady decline. In November 2009, according to Net Applications, it stood at 63.62 percent. Now it's broken the 60 percent barrier for the second time this year. Net Applications lists Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 beta with a 0.10 percent share. (IE 8 is the reigning browser-version champ, with a total market share of 29.06 percent, followed by Firefox 3.6 with 17.05 percent.) Microsoft unveiled that IE 9 beta Sept. 15 in a San Francisco event, and pundits immediately began to pick apart the browser's features and streamlined design. But can IE 9 reverse the browser franchise's downward trend? Other metrics firms place Internet Explorer in an even more precarious position: Royal Pingdom's market share numbers for September place Microsoft at 49.9 percent of the browser market, down from 58.4 percent in September 2009. That sort of data's liable to send a few chairs flying up in Redmond. Microsoft has shown itself capable of reversing a market share decline--look at last year, when Windows 7's release managed to stem the losses associated with Vista. And it's also a company that commits itself long-term to projects--People's Exhibit A being the Xbox franchise, which has managed to persevere despite initial doubts and years' worth of red link. So I have no doubt that Microsoft will take all the necessary steps to promote IE 9, such as baking the browser into as many products as humanly possible. But I think the days of Internet Explorer's absolute browser-market domination are pretty much over. Its majority share could soon follow, although I think that scenario is still a long way off. Microsoft certainly hopes so. |
Comments (7)
I think the explosion of non Windows devices is going to accelerate this. With all the iPhones, iPads, Android Phones, Blackberries, none running Ie and all browsing the web more and more. Note that all these run WebKit based Browsers. Soon WebKit will exceed IE.
Posted by smist08 | October 7, 2010 3:38 PM
Can we actually speak of “market share”? Does Microsoft actually have a revenue model for Internet Explorer, the way Mozilla does for Firefox? Otherwise, it seems to me IE is just a cost to Microsoft; without revenue, there is no incentive to turn out a really good product that will bring in lots of revenue.
Posted by Lawrence D’Oliveiro | October 7, 2010 7:09 PM
This is the point in history where Open Web Standards have become more important than ever.
Since IE is closed source, it's time for it to die and go by the wayside.
IE is simply used as a lock-in tactic for the windows platform and people are unknowingly revolting to this type of coercive monopoly by using other browsers.
This is good. IE should die. And Open, Interoperable, cross-platform computing will flourish.
Stop reinventing the wheel already choose something other than IE and it's lock-in.
Posted by Open Web Standards Leads the Way | October 8, 2010 9:56 AM
Content of a site visited by any browser should not harm any computer settings (registry for ms, etc for linux etc.) A browser should be light, very secure (jailed) and highly customizable. IE has none of those.
Posted by tiblang | October 8, 2010 3:04 PM
"Setting up personalized setting for:
Internet explorer" takes forever.
No wonder they are losing the market share.
Posted by tikblang | October 8, 2010 7:58 PM
A temnpest in a teapot, for sure. There was once a theory popularized in the financial press that Netscape would become the "next Microsoft" due to the browser somehow supplanting the OS as the thing that differentiated one computer from another. Today, that is seen as nonsense. All browser are no-cost items and for any practical purpose, all browser work the same way. Windows has lost a few percentage points of share to Apple, but that is the only news for the past 5 years or so. Firefox has gained, but Windows has not lost and, for Microsoft, that is all that really matters. Way back when, Microsoft offered the browser monopoly to Netscape and only came up with IE after Netscape demurred. 15 years later, nothing has changed in terms of who gets all the money.
Posted by Bill Weisgerber | October 8, 2010 8:21 PM
I use and like IE8. I basically have no problems with it at all. I don't download and run things I don't trust and so don't get viruses. That would be the same if I were running any browser on any platform.
I tried the IE9 Beta and liked it. IMHO it's still very much a beta so I am looking forward to the Beta Refresh or somesuch. In the present though I'm running IE8.
The others? Don't care for them really. I've tried most of them but see no substantive advantage over IE. I got tired of skinning FireFox pretty quickly and well, anyway .. I probably will go with IE9 when it goes gold.
Posted by Clumpy | October 11, 2010 4:37 PM