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Internet Explorer Market Share Drops To Almost 15%
glitch0 writes "Internet Explorer used to be the most prevalent browser with a market share that peaked at 88% in March of 2003. Now they're down to almost 15% due to stiff competition from Google, Mozilla, and even Apple. What implications does this have for the future of Microsoft?"
what about Opera?
*goes back to sit in the corner*
Yes, IE is losing marketshare but w3 schools statistics says nothing about the general population. Of course people who are studying web technologies are going to use other browsers. I would have more confidence if a site like Google or Yahoo published statistics.
That is statistics FROM THEIR WEBSITE.
Worse, it is statistics from a website that technically literate people visit!
Why this managed to reach the frontpage is beyond me.
This isn't indicative of browser usage in any realistic manner.
Hell, they even said so on the page. It is their own user logs.
I'm no Internet Explorer fan, but let's be fair here... The statistics are from visitors of w3schools.com, a site that people go to for web development. How many web developers or people interested in web development use Internet Explorer? I imagine it would be an easy point to argue that most of these individuals decidedly do not tend to use Internet Explorer. Claiming IE use is down to "almost 15%" sourcing nothing but a single web site's logs seems hardly trust worthy.
W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to the browser that comes preinstalled with their computer, and do not seek out other browser alternatives.
First of all, it's closer to 17%. With the current rate of decrease we'll hit 15% in something like four months if nothing happens before that. More importantly...
(The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures)
Audience of W3Schools is people who are trying to learn the basics of certain web-related technologies and don't yet know that W3Schools is hardly the best place for that. Whether you like W3Schools or not, it's hardly representative of general population.
In my free time I run a vegetable gardening website - so a very non-technical, home-oriented audience. Looking at the entirety of 2012, Google Analytics reports the following (everything else is at 1% or less):
IE 34.19%
Firefox 22.52%
Safari 21.38%
Chrome 14.80%
Android Browser 4.42%
For OS I see
Windows 65.68%
Macintosh 15.57%
iPad 5.24%
Android 4.53%
iPhone 3.95%
iOS 2.09%
Linux 1.23%
#DeleteChrome
"I for one don't understand why they would really care that much."
Because it was (and still it can be, since it's bundled on Windows for free) a cornerstone on their lock-in strategy (along with Office and Exchange, and currently Sharepoint too). If they allow "the cloud" to reach the point when vendor lockin is not possible, Microsoft will have a very worrisome future.
If Win 8 does not do well, they will have much more to worry about then IE's market shares
What implications does this have for the future of Microsoft?
It means they failed to pwn the internet, thank all the gods
But after Netscape withered it was Apache + BSD servers that kept them from it, not Firefox. If Microsoft had won on that front, they could have easily forced a MSInternet on us.
It was a close thing, but settled quite a few years ago. This story is about a symptom of *that* failure, not a failure in its own right. No need to use Microsoft products, if Microsoft doesn't pwn the infrastructure or file format.
They haven't given up pwning the PC yet, though. (New "secure" boot loader - mostly secure for Microsoft.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
windowsupdate.microsoft.com reports 99.9% IE user agents. IE is on a comeback!
(What? It's just as useful a metric as TFA.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
From TFA itself:
W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to the browser that comes preinstalled with their computer, and do not seek out other browser alternatives.
These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is a more popular browser.
Glitch0, please submit your résumé to CNN. They greatly value your kind of selective reading skills.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The link shows the browser stats ONLY for visitors to w3schools.com, which is notoriously skewed away from IE due to it being a techy site for people who tend to use other browsers 'cause they're web developers who use a variety of browsers. This is not news by any standard. Even the text below the chart says "W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user." & "These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is a more popular browser."
three letters, baby - ie6! I haven't bought new underwear in 8 years, i fail to see why i should download a new browser.
Windows 8 will be a trainwreck. Too many changes for most users. The issue is windows 9 (whatever that will look like).
I'd figure the optical mouse would popularize itself with people who don't like cleaning gunk out of their electronics. That said, I wish I could find an optical mouse that I liked as much as this ball mouse I've been using for the last 14 years...
Windows 8 will be a trainwreck. Too many changes for most users. The issue is windows 9 (whatever that will look like).
Windows 9 will be called "Windows Classic" after the outcry that people don't like the taste of the New Windows. It will mostly be the same as Windows 8 except it will have a Start menu and people will love it, because they really aren't that smart.
Win8 will do well, IMO. It will come out coupled with touchscreens, on which it really does work well - certainly far better than 7. I'm going to get it just for the various improvements such as insanely quick boot times and a huge improvement to the taskbar's multi-screen usage. Do I care about the looks of the new start menu? Yes, but not enough for me to overlook the other improvements. Besides, someone, probably stardock, will modify Win8 to have a classic start menu again. Until then, I'll just use windows key+F.
If that's what people actually want what's wrong with that?
All the backend stuff in windows, the x86/ARM stuff, processes, multiprocessor features etc. are mostly irrelevant to the day to day user experience of 'how do I start the program I want to run?'. If customers, because of 20 years of practice want a start menu... why not just give it to them.
No one is obliged to buy windows 8, if it's not what you want, don't buy it, and wait till they have a version that is what you want. (Or change OS's, which of course the big risk, as people don't have any desire to tolerate this sort of success-failure-success cycle MS has had going for a while).
No, they won't. People will just stick to windows 7 for a long time (like they did with XP). Even if windows 8 and 9 are complete bullshit people will still migrate to them when windows 7 support ends. Why? Because so much software is windows-only that no one will be able to move to linux or mac.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
So why would Microsoft care? I can think of one reason -- as has been pointed out by others, the more time people spend in a browser, the less they care about the underlying OS. When the user community is not dependent on a browser that's locked to a particular OS, the OS becomes less important, because you can run Chrome or Firefox or Opera on a lot of different platforms. Unlocking the browser from the OS is the first step -- causing a movement en-masse to a different operating system (or systems) is the next logical step. I would argue it is already happening.
So for the long term, if Microsoft isn't scared, they should be. I would expect over the next couple of years many attempts at embrace, extend, extinguish to get ...something... that everyone uses, locked into their one platform. I mean, how else are they going to compete?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You haven't told us the number of visitors to your site or its location. No one who posts stats like yours to Slashdot ever does.
If I had posted a link, then I'd be accused of being a shill or trolling for page hits - there's no winning either way. But here's the info from Google Analytics since 1/1/2012:
Visits: 138,719
Unique Visitors: 117,592
Pageviews: 237,555
Traffic sources:
72.08% Search Traffic (99,994 Visits)
16.11% Referral Traffic (22,344 Visits)
11.81% Direct Traffic
URL: http://westsidegardener.com/ - There, now I'm a shameless shill.
#DeleteChrome
No one is obliged to buy windows 8
There are "strict" obligations and then there are practical obligations.
MSFT's Windows lock-in with the manufacturers means that you'll buy Windows if you buy a pre-built computer from anyone except tiny Linux shops. Or Apple.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
People use IE in the business environment because it's the default and IT departments frown on (and in almost all cases prohibit) individuals from installing FF or Chrome.
Even though, since I telecommute and so have admin rights on my company-provided laptop, I've installed and primarily use FF, sometimes I still must use IE for some stupid intranet app or other that only works with IE.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
How well did that work out for vista?
I suspect that there will be a rush to get computers *without* windows 8 and then a lull until we see windows 9.
I saw a beta of it run on a EEE netbook with 1G ram. It was crazy fast. Loaded office, outlook, explorer... boom boom boom. But the interface was from Star Trek TNG without the curves. Then there is this whole locking the machine to the OS business. Talk about turn off.
I stopped using windows years ago because everything was office office office. Most people type, spellcheck, then print/email. Or they make ugly powerpoints and the most advanced feature used is to import a graph from excel. This is not what MS should have based their entire company on; and if it truly was the core of the company they would have put office on Linux long ago.
I don't think MS knows what it is and while that is going on the Office section has mostly dominated.
To contrast it with Apple's success; They know they are iTunes. Google mostly knows it is searching mass amounts of data and ads. And facebook knows it is monkeys standing under the tree looking at the shiny thing.
So I suspect that the new Windows is a good idea at its core but it will end up soaking in a caustic bath of Office until it is brittle and smells funny.
Windows 9 will be an attempt to compensate for the Office induced stink by wrapping it in steel bands to reenforce the structure. I am willing to bet that if the OS programmers at MS were able to tell the Office people to bugger off and even go so far as to sandbox their whole suite that Windows might regain the crown. I was so happy when Firefox walled out crap from MS putting itself into FF. It is this sort of thinking that has dogged MS for over a decade.
I remember when NT was really popular with programmers and I think one of the main reasons was that it wasn't tripping over itself to push other MS products. They had designed it to be a server OS with a thin GUI and the office people left it largely alone.
dude, this is gross.
I hope you clean your cache once a day at least, man.
This is like, basic hygiene.
Segmentation Fault in "Life, Universe and Everything" at line 42. Don't Panic.
If the next version of Windoze is going to be called Windows 9, what will happen in 86 more versions? Windows 95?
Well enough on the home-user front. Not so well in the Enterprise, which is why my 2yo corporate laptop runs XP Pro.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
You'll probably get flamed for posting your results, but thank you. And FWIW, your stats are in line with the sites I manage, that also attract a non-technical audience.
I'm about 99% convinced the StatCounter figures are completely ridiculous. The W3Schools figures are believable but completely irrelevent, as you'd expect software developers to be using browsers other than the ones that come pre-installed.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The last two stories timothy posted were assertions of facts based on meaningless statistics (Objective-C Overtakes C++ based on TIOBE Index) and now this. Is it naive incompetence or deliberate provocation of a circlejerk? I'm not sure which is worse.
Obviously I don't have a study to point to, we'll see when it arrives, I'm guessing just as is anyone else here.
Microsoft could pull something truly awesome out of its hat and make windows 8 a must have for a lot of people, rough edges and all.
The thing with tablets, is that microsoft lost that battle already. If you want a consumer tablet you buy an ipad. The great selling point of android was not a walled garden, and runs flash, but now flash is dying. Windows tablets seem more like business devices, but who knows, there's not really anything compelling about them as content consumption devices that you can't do on android or ipad already.
Now again, i admit, I could be completely misreading the market here, but I would expect microsoft to really struggle on tablet traction.
Which takes us back to the desktop, and in that case I don't really see windows 8 taking off. In some ways it's the same problem as vista, but worse. What does windows 8 do for me? I'm not seeing a whole lot I get out of it (and it takes away my ability to watch TV on my PC), it's going to be confusing to use and add very little. So there's no real compelling reason to upgrade unless they pull some new features that are really worth having.
Could it be that Chrome prefetching is actually generating enough traffic to skew the result?
I once had a signature.
How well did that work out for vista?
In the consumer space? Fine. Consumers bought Vista at a good clip, not a great clip but there was no massive drop off. The resistance was from enterprise and no expects enterprise to like Windows 8.
No one is obliged to buy windows 8
There are "strict" obligations and then there are practical obligations.
MSFT's Windows lock-in with the manufacturers means that you'll buy Windows if you buy a pre-built computer from anyone except tiny Linux shops. Or Apple.
Windows is next. These things take time. What do I mean? I'll answer the summary's question.
What implications does this have for the future of Microsoft?
That karma is very, very real and eventually even fat stupid Americans catch on and figure out that you're abusing them. It just takes them a long time. Anyone with a fully developed conscience stopped giving Microsoft money 15 years ago when they realized what they would have been funding. The rest care about only their own convenience and jump ship when an alternative is obviously superior. One way or another the result is inevitable.
So what will these "fat stupid Americans" switch to? Linux? Or will Apple start selling machines at a reasonable price and achieve larger market share? Something else I am not aware of? Curious to know.
Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin. -- Robert A. Heinlein
There are a few areas where Microsoft tablets could be compelling.
1) Enterprise tablets. Both Google and Apple don't even really try for enterprise they are gaining traction by accident.
2) Medical tablets. Most of the people who know how to design electronics for medical are windows OEMs. The Android OEMs don't have a clue, yet.
3) Tablets for sales / presentation.
4) Tablets as a way to consumer enterprise content i.e. light editing of office documents, citrix....
5) Educational tablets for schools that are already Windows centric.
etc...
"If customers, because of 20 years of practice want a start menu... why not just give it to them."
20 Years? 26 for me. I began with Windows 1.03 and I really don't like new crap.
First thing I always do with a new version is to disable all the visual gimmicks, like aero, menu shadings etc and install the classic scheme. Lately I also had to install utilities to get a decent menu.
Went to LibreOffice because of that damn Ribbon as well.
It's a fucking tool that I used for over a quarter century, I don't have the patience to get slowed down every couple of years because some young moron thinks some new gimmick is 'cool'.
Honestly, if someone finds a way to permanently disable Metro, then I'll buy Windows 8. It has some nice new features: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8
If you can't convince them, convict them.
It worked out pretty well. They sold at least 330 million copies. I would love for my software to be such a flop.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
I am still waiting for all the games I like to run on Apple or Linux. I think I still have to wait a very long time for that.
-- Cheers!
"If customers, because of 20 years of practice want a start menu... why not just give it to them."
20 Years? 26 for me. I began with Windows 1.03 and I really don't like new crap. First thing I always do with a new version is to disable all the visual gimmicks, like aero, menu shadings etc and install the classic scheme. Lately I also had to install utilities to get a decent menu. Went to LibreOffice because of that damn Ribbon as well.
It's a fucking tool that I used for over a quarter century, I don't have the patience to get slowed down every couple of years because some young moron thinks some new gimmick is 'cool'.
aaaaaaaaand.... GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
No one is obliged to buy windows 8, if it's not what you want, don't buy it
Huh? Where have you been for the last 20 years?
Try going into a computer shop this time next year. See if you can buy a new PC/Laptop without Windows 8*. Let us know how you get on.
(*) Unless it's a Mac, obviously...
No sig today...
XP will receive security updates until April 8, 2014.
Windows 7 until January 14, 2020.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/lifecycle
Why use XP? Think about the Enterprise, with hundreds or thousands of machines in different departments. Applications that have not been updated to work with later tech, such as JInitiator (requires Jedi hacking to work on x64), websites that may only work with IE 6 or 7, in-house batch files / scripts, compatibility with older servers, and so on.
Training isn't much where I'm at - people can barely report what OS they work on ("Do you see the word 'Start' at the lower-left, or a circle?") and most just clickity-click on whatever app they need to run. Outlook, Office, and IE are more like an OS to them.
Sometimes it is just as simple as plopping the new OS on, USMT, map the drives, and done. But in a varied environment it gets somewhat hairier, with infinite support calls. Better to wait either until the 3rd parties catch up or until you can implement workarounds and research fixes and alternatives.
Scarce, scared, scarred, sacred... -Col. Bruce Hampton
> Because they need to demote Windows 7 / .NET & COM to essentially a hosted
> operating system to force change. They reason they need to force change is because
> they want to support much more diverse hardware like phones and tablets. And that
> means in particular moving to vector not bitmapped based interface standards
> which effects all windows applications.
WTF??? Look, I agree that the desktop UI paradigm might suck on tablets+smartphones. That does *NOT* justify putting a tablet+smarthphone UI on desktop PCs, where it'll suck just as badly. Different horse for different courses, etc.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
> Win8 will do well, IMO. It will come out coupled with touchscreens,
> on which it really does work well - certainly far better than 7.
Oh boy, just what I need. Throw away the mouse. and stretch my arm out 2 feet to drag+drop stuff all the way across my 24 inch LCD screen. No thanks. You think people had carpal tunnel syndrome in the past, wait till this monstrosity takes over.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
To the moderator that marked this -1; While i disagree with the parent, there is nothing they said that called for a down mod. Modding down a post that you disagree with is not moderation, it is censorship. This makes you a scumbag.
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
Do you have some numbers to back that up?
For a desktop sure, but for a laptop your options are much more limited. You can get something from Zareason , system76, or one of a few Dell's but other than that you are pretty much stuck. I had to grab an Asus laptop from Best Buy (shudder) last year because mine died 2 days before I was leaving the country so I didn't have much choice other than buy one that had mostly Intel parts so I would have a fair chance of it working with Ubuntu. I tried getting a refund from Asus but it fell on deaf ears.
"Don't Panic!"
Just to add to you're point, I literally just bought a laptop from System76 that came with Ubuntu pre-installed.
It works great. I do have one problem, which may be my fault more than the machines. My older other laptop is an HP that came with Windows XP, was upgraded to Vista, broke horribly crashing and blue screens just about every day, then had Linux Mint installed and it's run with no issues for the last 5 years. It's primarily my MineCraft/Media server now, which seems to absorb all of the memory on the machine. I was able to get some games I had bough from GOG to run on a XP VMware installation on the old machine. The same games will not run on an XP VirtualBox installation on the new machine. I've only had the new laptop for a week, but I suspect it's one of two issues. It could be differences between VirtualBox and VMWare that are causing the issues. Or it could possibly be the cheapy Intel graphics card that came with the new machine. I won't know for sure until I have a chance to install VMWare and try running the same games under that instead of VirtualBox.
Long rambling point short, System76 is a great place to get a Linux pre-installed laptop if you're trying to avoid getting one with Windows preloaded.