Should Microsoft Be Worried About IE’s Usage Drop?
My recent run-in with a FOSS Supporter & the aftermath made me completely forget this little piece of news which recently became a debatable topic – Internet Explorer lost almost as much as 5.1% market share by dropping from 79.26 to 73.75 percent.
Leaving aside the method used to calculate or any sort of ambiguity in the calculation or otherwise, did Microsoft’s internet Explorer actually lose that much market share?
The report went on to say that this lost ground was gained by Firefox which went from 14.45 to 18.41 percent. Let’s put this in perspective shall we.
Mozilla Firefox comes for all three (only) major platforms of computing – Linux, Windows & OS X. It is a great browser, no doubt. In sharp contrast, Internet Explorer is available for only Windows. Now, something that is available for the 3 computing platforms is definitely going to grow as computing grows. Ubuntu bundles Firefox with it’s distros (not aware if other distros do so too).
Safari introduced it’s Windows version & also cheekily bundled it with iTunes update to get more users. Mac users have grown courtesy the spotlight the iPhone & iPod have brought on Apple. These are the two major factors for Safari’s gain.
Internet Explorer has been heavily critisized for it’s lack of Standard Compatibility. IE 7 has made strides towards ironing these out & IE 8 is sure to put to rest quite a few of these allegations. In this turmoil, Firefox gained a lot of admiration so did Opera, but that’s still no where. Opera has a policy of ‘If we can’t beat you, we will sue you’ that did not go quite well with Opera users too.
The point admist this jibber-jabber is that, Microsoft should not be worried about IE’s dip as IE, even though being Windows exclusive still leads competition by a huge margin. What Microsoft should be worried about is the drop in the use of Windows. If Windows were to increase, IE’s share will increase automatically. IE 8 is already a promising browser from what the beta shows, it is Windows 7 that Microsoft should be concentrating more on.
IE did not lose ground, but it is Linux, OS X & Firefox that have gained ground. Firefox is more popular due to it’s multi platform presence.
EDIT: I posted the following on a forum and I think this would put into perspective my opinion.
Microsoft should not be worried ‘coz:
- IE 8 is promising.
- Despite being a Windows exclusive it leads a multi-platform browser by a humungous margin.
- If Win 7 were to deliver, with IE 8 bundled it will automatically regain the lost 5-8% (considering alternate browsers gain more in the mean while)
IMO Microsoft should be worried over its drop not because it will suffer monetary loss but because their name is associated with it.
Lets not consider whether it is a proprietary or an open source product. The fact is that IE is not doing what it is supposed to do. It bugs its users as well as web developers. So its like nobody gains. On the other hand FF completely deserves its growth.
IE’s loss is not directly due to Linux or Mac’s taking hold. A majority of mac users choose Safari. On my blog, 45% use Firefox while over 78% use Windows.
Firefox’s pool has gone really wide. And since the more people start using it, the faster it spreads. So early on, when IE lost even a .01 to Firefox, it was a great victory. Nowadays the percentage drops are huge. It sure is going to go pretty wild soon.
As for me, I’m happy with Safari (On Mac as well as Windows)
What troubles me is that IE’s market perception is so bad that even if MS were to come out with a Linux or Mac version (which they did) it would bomb big time.
IE 8 should change a lot of this.
What you argue logically doesn’t make sense. I’ll use IE if it suits me better. Remember µTorrent is popular among OS X users as well.
Regarding the disclaimer thing, this sites renders better in my Safari than FX. :D
The whole point is that IE losing share was more due to a growing user base in OS X & Linux. Now Firefox is a lot more popular & common across the 3, which plays a significant role in it’s increase in market share. As I said, Ubuntu bundles Firefox, other distros might be doing the same. So these people might not be necessarily using Firefox for they prefer it, but now that it is there and is a popular browser they don’t need to look at Opera for instance.
If the article were to us per OS based analysis the picture would have been a lot clearer.
My navigation bar is not rendered correctly in Safari.
i will prefer ie over firefox because it’s more secure as compare to firefox.
Well is your XHTML valid? I ran it through the checker and it shows 5 errors+70 warnings. That’s a big amount. Maybe if you check the site properly for errors you will find that Safari renders it properly, but IE craps out. (that’s when that IE stylesheet comes in handy).
I have no clue what so ever dude! I just used the theme as I got it & changed what ever I could (however I could).
I hate to criticize you, Manan, but if you’re not good at handling themes, you’ve either got it custom built or used a public theme. If its the former, all is well, but if it is the latter, I suggest placing the credit link (most theme authors place one). Nofollow it if you want, but atleast have a link. It is a sort of thank you for spending several hours (I know, because I develop themes for my own blogs).
When I saw this theme, I liked it, and wanted to check it out, but see no theme link. So that’s one visitor lost for the theme author, though I’d come back to this site even if I went away once.
Well, I would have done that if the theme did not make me spend hours trying to make it look the same on all browsers with my zero knowledge of css &php and I would have done that if I did not have to open photoshop and manually change the header to rectify a glaring designing error. Read the Disclaimer on the top of the sidebar.
Another reason was that the theme was not linked to it’s creator but to a free themes web site.
The above 2 reasons is why the footer does not support the link.
I use opera and am pretty happy with its performance. I’d recommend it to anyone with heavy surfing usage. Per se, the basic mozilla is pretty lame without all those widgets (or their firefox equivalent) which are copied from opera :)
PS: From what i’ve understood, if a webpage doesn’t open well in opera, its a fault with your coding, not with opera, even if it opens well in other browsers.
Well, its opening properly in Firefox 3 presently. Quite well…
And BTW, I fell like laughing wildly when I saw Ajay’s comment….