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IE Market Share Drops Below 70%
Mike writes "Microsoft's market share in the browser dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years, while Mozilla broke the 20% barrier for the first time in its history. It's too early to tell for sure, but if Net Applications' numbers are correct, then Microsoft's Internet Explorer will end 2008 with a historic market share loss in a software segment Microsoft believes is key to its business."
lol
If taxation is legalized theft, then Capitalism is a prolonged rape followed by a slow death.
Looks like MS has 3 options:
4. ?????
5. Profit!
??? That what you're getting at?
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
Macs can charge what they do because they promise to deliver a "just works" solution. That market is far, far bigger than the "tweaker" market will ever be and pretty much in direct opposition to everything Linux is about like choice, flexibility, modularity and configurability. It's aobut creating highly integrated software with a small selection of hardware that has been extensively tested and more or less instructs the user "this is how it works" rather than ask "how would you like it to work?". It's costly but really these people have little choice - they're lost on a computer and would otherwise rack up other support costs. Linux quite frankly isn't even close on this market.
That I can understand. Where I'm disappointed is that Linux isn't able to capture more of the tweakers, of those that really are interested in computers and how they work and want to customize their experience. It'll never be a huge market, it'll never pay that much since people are skilled and can find their own way rather than pay expensive hand-holding, but it is much bigger than the 0.85% reported here. In many ways I see Macs and Linux as chipping away at different ends of the Windows market, but one would hope that as the Windows market share dropped and the monopoly loosens that Linux would get some free help from that, but... no, doesn't look that way so far.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In 1995 or 2000 I would be inclined to agree with you, but, is the same Microsoft still around? When Bill Gates was at the helm, or more importantly, employee stock was treated differently by accountants, you could count on Microsoft to be focused and deliver a good ass whooping as needed. I still think Bill's best moment of crushing was his destruction of Borland. First, he rolled out with VB to counter their C++ and OWL. Then, when Borland (why did they do this...bought Ashton Tate), Bill Gates opened up his phone book and bought tiny Fox Software, which everyone in the old xBase world knows made a much better product. I remember reading that, and I was a big Borland fan, but I just fell out of my chair laughing.... I thought, Fox, with Microsoft's backing, and Borland was finished. But of course, Gates was not. Not content with one desktop database, he then turned around and wrote the big check and got Access 1.0 and Access 2.0, both of which were ridiculed and are still ridiculed, but there's a ton of those 'mdbs out there to this day. So he had a friendlier programming tool, and two databases that were better than Borland's one database tool (which, to make matters worse for Borland, was insanely late). Yeah, Borland would later roll out with Delphi, but, by that time, the contest for desktop dominance was basically over. Delphi was cool, but VB was entrenched, Visual C++ had arrived, and there was FoxPro, Access and a budding SQL Server for database. IT was just over for Borland.. Gates made all the right moves, and Borland honestly made the wrong ones. What's ironic now, is that the guy that wrote Delphi is the guy that is now leading the charge on .NET... and I'm sure Anders is smart and all, but, like, why hire the loser? VB won, Delphi lost, and now Microsoft has the Delphi guy doing its languages. It just seems kinda stupid.
This is my sig.
Most people using IE don't know what a user-agent is...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Remember, Internet Explorer 8.0 is coming probably around March-April 2009. Once that comes out expect IE marketshare to increase again, mostly because there are so many corporate internal applications tied to IE that switching to Firefox, Chrome or Safari is not an option, especially with today's poor economy.
Switching to Firefox means IT departments will have to test all their applications for Firefox compatibility, a potentially expensive process if they need to convert apps for Firefox compatibility.