In its most recent data on the US internet market, Net Applicatins highlighted that Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) had gained market share, mostly against Mozilla Firefox. For those following this market, this is a somewhat surprising data. At the same time, the introduction of the ballot screen in the EU has not led to a major drop of market share for IE. Google Chrome has definitely made inroad but it owes its win to massive advertising campaigns across the EU which was synchronized with the appearance of the ballot screen. For those using several of these 3 products, it is difficult to argue that IE (even IE 8) is a much better product than either Chrome or Firefox latest versions ; IE 8 is a fine product with its plusses and minuses but not a much better product. So why is it that Internet Explorer is retaining a clear leadership in browsing statistics?
Of course, one can argue on Microsoft dominance and its management of the OEM channel explains it. Legacy and habits probably play a role too. On the other side, the replacement of IE6 and IE7 by IE8 would definitely help. Microsoft Brand recognition by consumer is good, but which internet user does not know, and trust, Google? I don’t think these elements explain the numbers we are seeing now.
Actually, the best reason for the remarkable stability of the IE market share was probably provided by IBM last week. IBM just decided to switch its browser of choice from IE to Firefox. This, from the company who is a major force behind open source and one of Microsoft’s staunchest competitors, is most surprising! Why not years ago? Firefox has been a better product than IE arguably for most of the last decade and it took IBM 10 years to switch?! If IBM did not / could not do it, you can easily imagine that the vast majority of corporations are still using IE as their default browser. The deep integration of Internet Explorer with most of Microsoft’s enterprise solutions such as SharePoint, and most generally with IT corporate ecosystems, makes it the de facto browser of choice for most companies.
What we may be seeing in the browser market data is some of kind of leveling due to the weight of enterprise browsing vs. consumer browsing. The key issue is that Net Applications does not break down browsing stats by enterprise vs. consumer. However, I would not be surprised that IE’s market share in the consumer market being already low and close to equilibrium but dominant (and stable) in the enterprise segment. If this is the case, we could actually see IE’s market share nudge up as IE 9 is released and they gain some traction in the consumer market. Microsoft’s core strength in enterprise will probably allow IE’s market share to be at least stable. Time will tell, but short term, any companies able to provide browsing stats by consumer vs enterprise would have a winning product.
Frederic HALLEY
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