Microsoft’s Browser Loses Ground

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Microsoft’s Browser Loses Ground

"Although Microsoft recently touted the 100 millionth installation of Internet Explorer 7, Web measurement firms said that the new browser is simply being swapped out for older editions and hasn't had an impact on Firefox's continued climb."

Source: InformationWeek

Despite what you might think, this is good news for Microsoft. It's competition that will drive the IE team to innovate and to "keep ahead of the pack" which is good for Microsoft and good for users too.

Technorati tags: IE7, Firefox, Microsoft

Print | posted on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 11:01 AM

Comments on this post

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But they've never been ahead of the pack. As soon as Firefox and virtually every other well-maintained alternative came out, they've been playing catch-up.
The only reason Microsoft released IE7 was that every other browser consistently and frequently updated their browser experience and MS, apart from the ubiquitous security fixes, refused to do so.
Microsoft have always treated IE as an add-on to Windows rather than a product in it's own right and have chosen to develop it as such.

Left by Michael on Jan 18, 2007 8:01 PM

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IE7 is way out in front in terms of market share, I mean it's not even a close race. From that position it's hard to be motivated to improve your product when there is no real competition as such. The fact that IE7's is now losing market share (no matter how insignificant that loss is) will motivate the IE team to push new ideas forward.

Left by Gary on Jan 18, 2007 10:01 PM

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Here's a scoop:
The Firefox team were in Redmond learning from the IE7 team about building securer browser technology on Windows!

What the stats don't say are the number of people who installed IE7 but then stopped using and migrated to another browser like Firefox or Opera. Now that would be an interesting one.

Are they really reporting installation or the downloading of IE7? Remember that IE7 requires manual installation even when it is downloaded via automatic updates.

Left by John A Thomson on Jan 24, 2007 11:01 PM