Internet Explorer Browser Share Falls Below 50%
CNNMoney -- "StatCounter, which tracks Internet data, said that Internet Explorer's share of the browser market fell to 49.9% in September. More people still use IE than any other single browser, but the combined market share of non-Microsoft browsers now outpaces IE. The other browsers have outpaced IE's innovations, has led Mozilla's Firefox, Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Chrome and Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) Safari browser to eat away at Microsoft's market share. Internet Explorer's use has been falling steadily over the past several years.
"This is certainly a milestone in the Internet browser wars," said Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter's CEO. "Just two years ago IE dominated the worldwide market with 67%."
MP: For visitors to Carpe Diem, the share of various IE browsers (6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0) is only 43.3% vs. 32% for Firefox, and 22% for Safari (see chart above). It wasn't too long ago that Microsoft was accused of being an evil monopolist, and prosecuted for bundling Internet Explorer with its Microsoft Windows operating system, which was supposedly unfair because it restricted the market for competing web browsers.
The end of Microsoft's dominance for browsers demonstrates that in the long run, vigorous market competition is almost always the best regulator of all, and the consumer's best friend.
8 Comments:
I can recall the time when Internet Explorer displaced Netscape as the dominant web browser.
The worm turns.
"The end of Microsoft's dominance for browsers demonstrates that in the long run, vigorous market competition is almost always the best regulator of all, and the consumer's best friend"...
Well maybe but I'm thinking that if I.E. X.0 didn't crash so often it might not lose so much market share...
What do the Top Ten browsers all have in common? They are all free.
BTW, Maxthon, which runs on top of IE, has had hundreds of millions of downloads because it is aimed at the Chinese market.
"The end of Microsoft's dominance for browsers demonstrates that in the long run, vigorous market competition is almost always the best regulator of all, and the consumer's best friend."
But in the meantime, trial lawyer scum will pick their pockets.
"BTW, Maxthon, which runs on top of IE"...
Well Buddy I use Maxthon and its quite bit more sensible, logical, and stable than the I.E. browsers I've used...
Love it!
Now here's what I think is a truly cool site to test out your web browser on: World Heritage Virtual Tour...
(need Flash, Java, and QuickTime installed also)
There's lots of sites here with excellent panoramic views of particular areas...
Some seriously good photography!
Cheaper than flying there...
No hassles with airports, customs, monetary exchanges, heat, humidity, bugs, and other irritating and potentially deadly critters...:-)
It took more than just market competition - as Microsoft was forced by non-market forces to change tactics. In the 1990's Microsoft was trying very hard to entrap customers by introducing proprietary features, and forcing - in every way that they could - the use of Internet Explorer.
This was bad for the market (the playing field was tilted), bad for developers (the browser differences made web applications much more difficult), and bad for customers (as the web applications developed were fewer and less capable).
Part of Microsoft's strategy was to discourage the development of web applications, to prolong the profitable lifetime of desktop (Windows) applications.
When non-market forces caused Microsoft to change tactics, the playing field became more level. The acceleration of the development of web applications is in large part due to the fact that Microsoft was discouraged from following their old strategy.
The end of Microsoft's dominance for browsers demonstrates that in the long run, vigorous market competition is almost always the best regulator of all, and the consumer's best friend.
This is lost on the statists who believe that once a company has a large chunk of the market it can magically keep competitors away from muscling in on its market share. That has never worked in the unhampered marketplace and never will.
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