IE Market Share Drops Below 70% 640
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."
Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
So....heard that Microsoft might be laying off 15% of its workforce?
Well.....this might compound that.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Informative)
and if you listen slightly to the West, you just might hear some of them land...
And if you listen slightly to the East, you just might hear some stock brokers land... *splat*
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Funny)
Or buy IKEA shares
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, Microsoft would be delighted to hear about the browser stats for Game! [wittyrpg.com], then...
Based on unique hits to the front page:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a great example of sample bias. The answer to FAQ #15 [wittyrpg.com] states that Game! doesn't work well in IE.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Disappearance of microsoft will not be a happy event for nerds
Microsoft isn't going anywhere. Let's review which market segments they are involved in:
* Productivity Software (Office) that is (for better or worse) almost universally used.
* Workstating Operating System Software that is (for better or worse) almost universally used.
* Video game consoles.
* Server operating systems
* Database software
* Exchange (e-mail software? Whatever the hell you wanna call it)
* MSNBC
Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure others can add those that I've missed. Microsoft isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. They've diversified quite well and have a foothold in so many different markets it's not funny. Wait long enough and you'll see them borrow a page from GE's play book and start their own financing division.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft isn't going anywhere. Let's review which market segments they are involved in:
* Productivity Software (...)
* Workstating (sic) Operating System Software (...)
And without those two, MSFT is dead. On the other markets they are either way too small (database servers), or their operations are just burning money.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Without one of those two Microsoft is crippled beyond recognition. It would still be big, but it wouldn't have nearly the market power (or the money to throw at new products) that it does now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite. Database Servers and Exchange Servers are huge business for Microsoft, about $2B/year for SQL Server and $1.5B/year for Exchange. By itself either product generates more revenue than a company like Red Hat, Sybase, Novell or McAfee.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Funny)
Oh what the hell, it's Slashdot - I'll bite.
Bill, is that you?
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. When your business model is built on intentional incompatibility to prevent competition, you need to be horizontally integrated. People don't want exchange on their servers but they want it on their clients. You want the latter, you have to take the former.
Still, 70% is hardly the same as going out of business [in that division]
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything I've worked on the past decade or two....are large operations, and pretty much Sun (and now Red Hat Linux) as the OS for Oracle as the database.
In most large operations I've come across...sure, you'll see a token MS server box here or there...usually for some special app that is windows only, but, for things requiring large and dependable RDBMSes....I only see Oracle on some flavor of Unix.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Bull. If you think SQL Server, Exchange and Sharepoint aren't huge for them, you're nuts, and they're positioned to grow. Sharepoint is growing quickly, and within a couple of years will be really, really hard to dislodge. The number of new installations in corporate and education would make the Open Office folks giddy. Everyone here focuses on Windows and Office, trust me, Sharepoint and Exchange are a huge, huge deal. Because here's a little secret - a lot of organizations won't give their internal data to Google, or anyone else for that matter. And these are huge money makers for Microsoft.
And by the way, if you've got corporate desktop licensing, you get Client Access Licenses for various applications as part of that. Makes it cheaper to run the server products.
By the way, Sharepoint is going to help them hold onto the Productivity software market as well, due to the integrations. And there's a huge ISV market building around Sharepoint add-ons and products that integrate with it.
I don't really care if Microsoft does well or not, but they're in the game a lot more than you think they are. They didn't hire Ray Ozzie for no reason. And given the usual delay in people noticing, when the "conventional wisdom" on Microsoft catches up to what they're likely actually doing, it's going to seem like they turned on a dime, even though they've been working on this stuff for years.
They make a huge amount of money, and have a lot of cash, and they're a lot healthier than Sun, Novell and Red Hat. They've got a lot of revenue streams. Hell, I suspect their fundamentals might actually be better than Google, even though Google gets better press.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you actually USED Sharepoint?
It's just a bodged up collection of mismatched software components. Squeeze a lightweight (in terms of capabilities) document manager in with a half-assed web server and database, add a browser-based site designer and call it a collaborative tool...
Sharepoint is another product that has just been bashed out without no thought whatsoever into what the customers needs are, and no ingenuity.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a quote from my favorite movie :) Just joshing you a little. Seriously though, your examples are not good ones.
** Productivity Software - It's overpriced, buggy, and full of security flaws. It faces open source competition on two fronts. I am personally aware of several businesses that flat out switched to other solutions when they realized they could save a ton of money and not lose any real features they actually used. Now the "higher end" stuff like project management, visio, etc. are pretty neat, but they are not without competition either.
** Workstation Operating Systems - Well unless you are talking about NT 4.0, Microsoft has not really been distinguishing between it's flavors of operating systems very well. The same OS that is used on a "workstation" is used everywhere else. People realized fairly quickly that XP Home was utter crap. If you wanted reliability at all you had to go to XP professional. Even Media Center was based off it. So from small office, to power users it was XP pro or Windows 2000 professional. Of course recently MS has gone pokemon with all the flavors of Vista.
So to say it is used on "workstations" does not really mean anything. It's not an intrinsic workstation product. It is just used on workstations since those people chose a Microsoft solution. Once again, serious competition is creeping up everywhere. I myself have largely migrated to various flavors of Linux and if I need a pure MS operating system (WINE won't do it) I just go virtual. The only times you can't go virtual (without difficulty) is gaming, and that is not what you are talking about.
Furthermore, there is a widespread (and yet unreported) rebellion against MS in the Terminal Server market. In the past you had to use a CAL, TS-CAL, and XP Pro license to create a single workstation capable of becoming a Terminal Server client. That cost at least 200-300 USD depending on your licensing deal. With 3rd party solutions you can COMPLETELY get rid of ALL of the licenses on the client. Basically a small Linux thin-client. The cost? Less than 300 USD per client and you get a 20" screen, built-in sound, and a "computer" that looks exactly like a XP workstation. That is serious competition in the workstation market.
** Video Game Consoles - REALLY bad example here. XBOX may have done well this Christmas season compared to PS3, but what about the BILLION DOLLAR loss on the infamous quality control problems? They have lost a lot of credibility in the market. Kids don't care too much since they can just scream till the parents get one, but there are LEGIONS of PARENTS that are -* *- this close to raiding MS with pitch forks and torches. I know plenty of parents who asked me my opinion in the last 3 years and I flat out told them to buy any other console. It had a better chance of actually surviving six months. Don't get me wrong, I love the XBOX 360 and the games on it. I just know how likely it was that I would be using the phone to get an RMA. That's frustrating and bad for Microsoft.
** Server Operating Systems - Server 2008 is not all that great. Neither was 2003. Most people never had a reason to go past Advanced Server. It's a LOT of money. If you were using it in a data center you have a lot of other options these days and all of them are cheaper than MS. The total cost of ownership with MS is a lot higher. I know they have a large marketing program trying to convince businesses otherwise, but their numbers don't add up. Mine do. There is serious competition right now and EVERYTHING is going to a virtualized platform. It has too. Virtualization offers so many benefits it's the new way of life. I don't think MS is doing it as well as VMWare or Virtualbox, or some open source solutions. Convincing some one to use a MS solution for virtualization of their servers is expensive. If you are talking about simple webhosting you can create a fully vir
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
People realized fairly quickly that XP Home was utter crap. If you wanted reliability at all you had to go to XP professional.
Come on, if you're going to be a fanboy, try and hide the blind hate with nonsense that could be at least a little credible.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you give examples of good Exchange replacements? Lack of such is one of the most frequently cited reasons for MS's continued dominance in the enterprise, because while there are trivial replacements for Windows, IE, Office and Outlook, replacing Exchange has been a show-stopper for a lot of places.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Can you give examples of good Exchange replacements? Lack of such is one of the most frequently cited reasons for MS's continued dominance in the enterprise, because while there are trivial replacements for Windows, IE, Office and Outlook, replacing Exchange has been a show-stopper for a lot of places.
This one was mentioned on /. a couple months ago:
http://www.zarafa.com/ [zarafa.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am also interested in this. My school district has been looking to cut costs by implementing energy conservation. This is laudable for many reasons. Getting off the MS bus is also appealing to me for a number of reasons, but I think the cost cutting would have the most impact if proposed.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at Zimbra:
http://www.zimbra.com/ [zimbra.com]
Good Exchange Replacement (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you give examples of good Exchange replacements?
Yes. Lotus Domino / Notes.
And no, I'm not joking. Lotus has come a *long way* with their new version 8.x stuff.
It works very well, is reliable, and even looks very good with an all-new user interface. IBM has been remarkably active in Lotus development the past few years and has made Lotus into a highly capable enterprise messaging and groupware system for the 21st century.
Yes, there have been many years of Lotus nightmare stories, and Lotus still does have a fairly steep learning curve, and its architecture is vastly different from Exchange.
It's as different from MS Exchange as Linux is different from Windows.
Re:Good Exchange Replacement (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. Lotus Domino / Notes.
That's like saying that suicide is always an option.
Drop-in replacement for MS Exchange (Score:4, Informative)
Can you give examples of good Exchange replacements?
Yes, for that see DVL [damnvulnerablelinux.org]. Seriously, though you have to define what activities you need to do before you can ask for a replacement. MS Exchange is marketed in many niches and fails (on the surface) in most. The most spectacular is its failure as a mail server replacement, if you look at it as such. If you look at the wonderful cover of plausible deniability it gives executives by randomly losing and delaying mail, then that is a success.
Anyway, try looking these. Keep in mind that, unlike with M$ products, you can combine pieces of several packages.
If you are simply looking to improve reliability of e-mail they a plain Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) will do. Before it became too embarrassing for M$, it used to be recommended practice to put one of these in front of MS Exchange to improve reliability and security. Also look up ClamAV, Spamassassin and how to do greylisting.
However, before you can think about "replacing" MS Exchange, you will have to get rid of the staff that selected and deployed it in the first place. They ignored all the licensing shortcomings, the bad reviews, high price and ongoing technical failure to instead push ideology over technology. People making decisions based on ideology are not going to accept any technical or economic arguments...
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, you forgot their accessories division (Microsoft keyboards and mice) which will keep them afloat for many years to come!
I think, if anything, the internet will be their downfall. They just don't understand it. In the mid-90s, they tried to control the internet by marrying internet explorer to their OS. Yes, it screwed up standards and forced the internet to bend to their will for a while (IE only websites). I suppose it was great to sell boxes that way by practically having an exclusive market on the entire WWW working for them, but IE made no money on its own.
Then in the late 90s, it shifted it's attention to the holy grail of an internet Portal. MSN. It's target was yahoo. To make it apparent how serious it took this and for how long, within the last year they were trying to take over Yahoo. To demostrate their lack of focus, with the market crash, despite having a ton of cash lying about, they are not willing to buy Yahoo now. Less than 6-9 months later. I guess flailing around in the dark, they found another strategy beyond the internet portal.
But the internet marches on. It will be their death one day. Linux adoption would not have been possible without the internet. But more than that, someone else mentioned about how they would explain to their grandmother why the windows card game disk doesn't work in her linux box. It won't matter. That market is dead. Games are slowly splitting into two parts: hardcore gamer games where they need max hardware, or flash games which work on any platform readily. The middle market has eroded. Grandma is more likely playing online than off a CD these days. And the high end market, MS itself has made less important, with its consoles that are guaranteed to play. There will be always a PC gamers market, but it becomes less important with every console generation.
Lastly, Microsoft is pricing itself out of the market. I can either be a pirate and take what I need or I can pay through the behind a price for boxed MS while OEMs pay but a fraction of it. That means, eventally, with WGA, that less and less people tinker with the OS. While Ubuntu and others play friendly at installs, MS just assumes it's king and has no partition tools upon install. Nor is it's install disc readily a livecd either, unlike many linux distros. It's also not handling 64 bit too well imo. My one Vista Business install, I decided that 32 bit was no longer enough. Do they give me a 64 bit for free or a small fee? No, OEM copies cannot be upgraded cheaply, they want $$$. Yet, when I bought the computer, 32/64 bit had no price difference. It's just a case of MS wanting to extract money where it can, and in this case probably will cost more than the actual ram I want to upgrade with. Other than ram, these are things that the linux community will gladly give me free.
There will never be a year of the linux desktop. As this stastic shows, it will just keep creeping up before we realize what happened. The cracks in the wall are already there. I would say a dam bursting event is when Quicken or Photoshop list on their software Windows XP, Vista or Wine 1.0 (or whatever version) compatibility. Then you know things will get ugly quick for MS.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well I only see one post marked as troll before yours. It's valid too. There is nothing substantive in that post. Just accusations that I am a fanboy and my statements lack credibility. I don't think you will be modded as troll either, nor should you. Calling my post bizarre is pushing it a little, but the rest of your post is worth reading and responding to.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhhh, no. Darth Vader had a "reputation" for heavy-handedness. Emperor Palpatine and Lord Sauron had reputations for "heavy-handedness". MS has a reputation like Aliens. You just can't reason with them sometimes and even whole squads of Marines can't deal with them. Orbital bombardment gets discussed as the only logical solution (low-level formatting).
I'll never see eye-to-eye with you but you can write some funny stuff. Seriously, you have a talent for humor. You might look into starting a blog.
BTW, I'm strictly a developer; I really don't get into the IT world with boxen and routers and what not. You may have a terrible time of it but those dev tools MS puts out are the shiznit: polished, clean, and a pleasure to spend countless hours in front of. This puts starts in my eyes...so we are in two different worlds.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
That's somewhat true. Here are some operating income figures from their 2008 annual report [microsoft.com] -- it's 6 months out of date, but represents the most recent full year of data:
My take on it is that they aren't diversified enough -- everything hinges on desktop Windows and Office right now. There's some strength in the Server division, but that's also where they have some very powerful competitors. If I were an investor, I would pay close attention to corporate spending in 2009, since some companies may start exploring cheaper alternatives.
The Entertainment division is definitely a weak point, especially when you consider that the Xbox is approaching its peak profitability. Even if they were making ten times as much, I would still be wary of depending on the Xbox's revenues, since the market leader can flip-flop between console generations.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Interesting)
The number of programmers employed to write shrink-wrap software aimed at consumers is a tiny fraction of the number of programmers writing software for use inside their own company.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Businesses don't need a new slighly shinier version of the Windows operating system that requires all new hardware. Likewise businesses don't need a new version of their office suite, especially if it comes with a new set of file formats that basically throw out the quadzillions that have been invested in software that deals with the old formats. The old versions of Windows and MS Office work fine, and for many people the cost of upgrading simply isn't justified.
However, in a world where software is inc
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Disappearance of microsoft will not be a happy event for nerds : it will be a disaster.
Hopefully consumers remain accustomed to paying for software even when microsoft dies, or the market that pays our salaries shrinks by 90% or so. Even if companies continue to pay it will still be a large portion that dies.
Look at Red Hat and look at the future when MS dies. Red Hat isn't exactly struggling and yet all their software is pure OSS not even "freeware".
The demise of MS will only lead to better software, more competition, lower prices, and no more annoying unpaid tech support calls from your parents/grandparents/brother/etc.
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
The demise of MS will only lead to better software, more competition, lower prices, and no more annoying unpaid tech support calls from your parents/grandparents/brother/etc.
So, you honestly think there will be fewer calls with oss? You can explain to my mother in law why the card games disk she bought won't install and walk her through it then... Seriously, I like floss, but you are pretty dense if you think it will reduce the need for end user support, rather than simply change it.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
The mythical grandma who somehow "knows Windows" and can't change to anything else ... like she EVER would buy a card games disk ... I'd tell her to go to the KDE menu, then Games->Card Games->> then pick a game ...
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with everything but the last sentence, "no more annoying unpaid tech support calls from your parents/grandparents/brother/etc". Although Windows is very somewhat faulty, 80% of the calls I get from my parents/friends are caused by ineptitude on their behalf, and that's not going to change so soon.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Funny)
They have been trying to (Score:3, Funny)
Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me be the first (?) to say "Yay"!!
IE has been dominating and destroying the Web for far too long. The lower market share will indicate increased platform diversity and consumer choice.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm not entirely optimistic yet. Sure, Microsoft is losing on features, quality and security... no duh. They are beyond the point where they can actually put out a decent product that doesn't all but collapse under its own corpulence. On the other hand, Microsoft didn't become the biggest and most powerful software company based on features, quality and security.
Sooner or later they are going to start fighting back (and I don't mean that feeble, half-hearted IE8), and they never fight clean.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not the worst thing that could happen to Microsoft, that would be keeping Steve Ballmer in charge indefinitely.
However, they lose leverage when significant portions of the population aren't using their browser. Remember, they can only compete through unfair means, they are too stagnant, too bloated and too atrophied to actually produce software that isn't years behind everyone else... all they can do is lie, cheat and steal marketshare. However, they are very good at that and have the resources, the
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Total moronic nonsense.
That's shameless historical revisionism.
It was browsers like Netscape that were enabling what you
describe. They were doing this before it occured to Microsoft
to bundle a web browser with their OS. Infact the browser they
decided to bundle (spyglass) was just one of these browsers
that GOT THERE FIRST.
This is supposed to be "Windows" where just putting in a CD
and installing some software shouldn't be rocket science.
Try this crap on people that didn't live through it all.
Microsoft has done nothing to help the net (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
I remember when MSIE made the web, when they started putting it with the OS is when the internet started taking off.
MS created IE because the web was taking off without them. Netscape Navigator was supposedly $14.95, but IIRC the Beta's were free. MS didn't want to lose control of the desktop and was actively discouraging a the pre-installation of Netscape [courttv.com].
Until then, it was still a geeks paradise, Mom and pop's had to pay hundred's to be hooked up. Around that time, it was Click on MSIE, the computer would dial up, make an account, and you could use the internet.
What the heck are you talking about? MSN? MSN was created in response to CompuServe and AOL and morphed into an ISP in response to the already prevalent trend. There was nothing magical about it. I guess the bundling made it easier to get started, but all the pieces were in place and MS was actively fighting others trying to thread together the pieces. Again, this was created in response to the existing trend, not the cause. Existing ISPs were price competitive and covered the spectrum of AOL hand-holding to mom and pop ISPs.
Peoples hate of MS blinds them to the fact that they have done some hugely good things in the process to get to were they are.
The vision and momentum of the Internet came from outside of MS. If it weren't for efforts like Mosaic and Netscape, MS would not have created it. If it were not for efforts like Firefox, than the Internet would be IE only and we'd be stuck with IE 6 and ActiveX hell. I'm not saying that MS is evil, they are simply opportunistic (as they should be) and I don't feel like giving credit were credit is not due.
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
This data is a month old. It was discussed on slashdot before (but I don't remember if it got its own article). Why not wait a day or so and post year-end statistics?
Re:Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
God, this article must be one of the crappiest in a long, long time. The december figures are already up!
Browser trends [hitslink.com]
MSIE 68.15%
Firefox 21.34%
Safari 7.93%
Chrome 1.04%
Opera 0.71%
Operating system trends [hitslink.com]
Windows 88.68%
Macs 9.63%
Linux 0.85%
iPhone 0.44%
The two line summary:
Firefox and Safari both take lots of market share from MSIE which is now way below 70%.
Macs have a huge one-month (0.8%) and two-month (1.4%) rise while Linux is flatline.
Uncomfortable truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Mac's market share went up more last month alone, than there are people using Linux as a desktop OS altogether (no time frame).
Just like Opera, which has been stuck at ~0.7% since pretty much forever.
When you can't somehow manage to give away your main and only product, and most people would seemingly rather pay a lot of money for the alternative (like Macs), you know you have a serious problem.
Something must suck with your product, when people would rather pay a lot for the alternative than use yours for free.
Re:Old news (Score:4, Insightful)
There are nearly twice as many Linux users as iPhone users? Cool! Those things are rather common.
How many iPhone users do you see surfing the web? Regularly? For extended periods of time? There's tons more iPhone users than Linux users, and even the little web surfing they do is half the market share of Linux. The only thing I read out of these numbers is that even though Macs are chipping away at the Windows market share, Linux isn't making any inroads in the opening market. This is when Linux should manage to draw a little attention to itself and say "Hey, don't just make a Mac version it's time to make true cross-platform tools!". I'm not sure why not, maybe the Macs have managed to steal away those I'd consider natural candidates for using Linux too. I think you can safely dismiss 2009 as the year of the Linux desktop, unfortunately. It's on the right track but not progressing nearly fast enough for that.
Opera's low percentage. (Score:3, Informative)
Admittedly, I only use Opera while doing browser compatibility testing for my client-side web apps, but I've always been pretty impressed by it. It's fast and compliant. I think it's a bit of a shame that it is holding such a low share.
Re:Opera's low percentage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of us surf with Opera set to report as IE to bypass unintelligent browser compatibility tests...
But Opera has one drawback which is Java/javascript handling. It often doesnt handle sites that both firefox and IE handle fine. I dont know which is at fault but it is a pain >.
All in all though it is a dang nice browser :)
Re:Opera's low percentage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering Opera's install base on mobile devices I would expect that number to be much higher. Considering its common configuration to mis-identify as IE to avoid website misbehavior, I predict that that number is seriously under-representative of the true marketshare. Also, never use statistics that are not explained. What does "70%" mean on this chart? 70% of visits (define visits?)? 70% of hits? 70% of unique IP addresses? 70% of traffic?
Re:Opera's low percentage. (Score:4, Informative)
Torrent option hidden in the address bar?
It's just under preferences for downloads. Select 'use default application' instead of 'use opera' for torrent files.
Why would you uninstall it after you fixed the problem? Just because it is "ridiculous", even though you will never have to do it again. Surely getting over that one-time-only config change is better than the 100% cpu usage and random crashes you get with browsers like Firefox all-the-time.
Who's history? (Score:5, Informative)
It's been renamed several times, somewhat refactored, had a few parts replaced and a lot more added, but that code base was once the most popular browser on the planet.
--Markus
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla's browsers are based on a rendering engine and a user interface model which are both complete rewrites. All that is left of the old Netscape is the inspiration created by making an open source project out of a dead end codebase with a famous name, a cute mascot and a uniting enemy.
Re:Who's history? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Who's history? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who's history? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who's history? (Score:4, Informative)
My understanding is that NN5 was a modified version of NN4, and that it was scrapped entirely in favor of the new Mozilla, which was a from scratch effort. I could be wrong.
3 options (Score:5, Interesting)
Bundling and Bungling (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really not a surprise. IE is an inferior product. It always has been. The market share it has received is solely attributable to the bundling with the Microsoft operating systems.
When people become savvy enough to realize there is a choice and be able to find and implement that choice.... they do. I have been trying to get all the offices, clients, etc. that I have worked with to switch to Firefox since.. well forever. It's more secure.
Now, I realize that there might be some MS fanboys out there to argue that point, but you have a lot of work to do. IE is horrible at security. It is almost as if they just don't care. I am willing to admit that IE is a bigger target, but that does not excuse Microsoft's behavior with it.
The greatest setback that Firefox, and others have is that Microsoft does not play nice with the world community. Until recently there have been a huge number of websites that will only work with IE. That is slowly changing now too. No longer are consumers and business customers chained to IE because Firefox cannot work with their website that they need.
The only direction IE ever could go was down. If Microsoft wants to change that then they need to do some serious work and start cooperating with the rest of world. Build a better product is the simplest way to put it.
In the end it will Microsoft's hubris that pushes IE into the minority.
Re:Bundling and Bungling (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, IE is like US cell phone service. It's all about controlling the customer.
I recently bought a Windows smartphone (I have Windows CE apps I need to run). It's a pretty good phone (which is most important), and it wouldn't be a bad platform except that what the product wants to be is grossly distorted by the priorities of the carrier. It's locked down so you have to buy apps through the carrier (although I fixed this with some registry edits). In many other subtle ways, a product that could have been pretty good is undermined by the desire to funnel the user into the carrier's other products.
Things would have been better for the consumer if we'd adopted GSM at the outset like Europe and you could buy any phone and pop your SIM into it. Then the features of phones would be driven by making the best possible phone, not driving additional revenue to the carrier.
It seems to me IE is much the same. It doesn't implement standards very well, because that's bad for Microsoft. MS offers developers a carrot and stick: a nicely interlocked set of development tools that drive products into an MS only stack, and then the stick of incompatibility when you use non-MS software. It's predicated on promoting a world in which MS controls the software ecosystem.
The reason IE has been bad at security is that once MS cut off Netscape's air supply, making the best browser has not been the focus of the development efforts. It's been keeping an MS only product stack the path of least resistance.
Re:Bundling and Bungling (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got a coworker that is an IE fanatic. He keeps pointing out that IE uses less memory than FF, he's right. He also tallies up whenever I complain of a crash vs when he complains of one... and he's winning (as in fewer crashes).
I love being anti-m$, but you can't just dismiss their product as second-rate because you want it to be.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bundling and Bungling (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got a coworker that is an IE fanatic. He keeps pointing out that IE uses less memory than FF, he's right. He also tallies up whenever I complain of a crash vs when he complains of one... and he's winning (as in fewer crashes).
I love being anti-m$, but you can't just dismiss their product as second-rate because you want it to be.
Part of the equation is where the dividing line falls between IE and Windows (this all came out during the antitrust hearings). Many libraries that used to be part of IE are now part of Windows instead. When you say "IE uses less memory than Firefox", you aren't seeing those significant chunks of IE that are basically running all the time that Windows is running.
As a web developer, I can tell you from experience that IE is indeed inferior ("second-rate", to use your term) to most other browsers out there. Sure it renders HTML just fine; but its support for the document object model, cascading style sheets, and dynamic html is significantly lagging both Gecko (Firefox's engine) and Webkit (Safari, Chrome), and probably Opera's as well. Part of the problem is - as others have pointed out - it hasn't been in Microsoft's best interest to implement full support for these standards; until recently it tried to drive developers to using MS-only implementations in ActiveX or Javascript to accomplish the same functionality. But now with IE's share dropping, MS apparently is starting to realize they need to catch up if they want to stay in the game as apps move into "the cloud".
In my mind IE 8 is going to be the real determining factor as to whether Microsoft really "gets it" or not. Prior to IE 7's release we heard a lot of hype regarding how its development was being driven by Microsoft's new commitment to standards; only to be disappointed at all the things it still didn't do. Now they seem to be saying "this time it's for real" - we'll see. I am hoping it's true, because I'm tired of basically doubling my coding time just to work around IE's current shortcomings.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure it renders HTML just fine
IE cannot even render the <q> tag correctly. That has been standard for more than a decade and would be _brain dead easy_ for them to support.
But now with IE's share dropping, MS apparently is starting to realize they need to catch up if they want to stay in the game as apps move into "the cloud".
The cloud, web 2.0... all just market speak. It's still just web hosting and javascript. What I see happening is the acceptance of "graceful degradation." The idea is that you create something and allow it to 'degrade gracefully' on browsers that cannot render things correctly. That's developer speak for "fsck IE. Were done supporting Microsoft's old and bus
IE was better for a while and Apache hurt too (Score:5, Interesting)
This is really not a surprise. IE is an inferior product. It always has been. The market share it has received is solely attributable to the bundling with the Microsoft operating systems
This is not true at all. IE 1, 2 & 3 were not as good as Netscape Navigator and they suffered, but IE 4 was hands down better than other browsers. It mainstreamed a fully programmable DOM, where Netscape Navigator had what, document.write, and a bunch of junk about layers.
And, while we lament the death of Netscape, you do have to remember that while free IE may have killed Netscape on the client side, I'd be willing to bet that Apache utterly crushed Netscape on the server side. Does anyone remember Netscape web servers? Ah, that's a big negative. I remember even in the late 1990s our Sun admin was looking to replace Netscape web server with Apache... him and others like him really finished that company off.
The only direction IE ever could go was down. If Microsoft wants to change that then they need to do some serious work and start cooperating with the rest of world. Build a better product is the simplest way to put it.
This is very true. But you have to understand that the counterpoint to Microsoft's strategy is to get people to think about rich clients again and they are actually being rather successful with VSTO and Excel integration. I see lots of contract work with Excel front ends, instead of web front ends, these days. It's a crappy technology, but businesses pay for it.
Poor execution, exclusive mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
I think just about everyone in tech, outside of Microsoft, saw this coming. Instead of adopting inclusive standards, MS opted for exclusive, proprietary technology and then implemented it poorly. ActiveX, VBScript, .NET...all require Windows and IE to work right. They tried to tie their OS to the development environment, the server environment and did everything they could to try and force the client as well.
IE was a stagnant, monolithic bug farm that lacked imagination and, perhaps most desperately, innovation. How many Firefox add-ons would be hard to live without? NoScript, FlashBlock, FireFTP there are dozens of applets that let you customize your browsing experience to your preference.
IE Almost 70% -- Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I must question those surveys. While quite a number of people I know use Windows, almost no-one I know actually uses IE as their default browser. Unfortunately severely insecure features of IE, like ActiveX, are needed to upgrade Windows. I'm sure Mozilla is capable of making its own 'ActiveX', but I guess they'd be sued as we are talking essentially American businesses. As we all know, it is rather difficult to remove IE from Windows. Clearly, the best option is the trend: Abandon Windows!
Any hacker can make their Firefox (or Opera) look like IE or any other browser. For instance, I don't use "Flash", but while I use FreeBSD, the scripts say its "Flash-10" on "IE-7" on Windows. Perhaps I should have some pride and tell the truth? I'm using Firefox, but I'm not sure that Firefox is what I have set in my proxy. Let me explain. Ikea, in Holland, gives you a 5% discount if you order with IE. Of course I'm not going to fire up Windows to order from Ikea! So, I simply "lie" and take 5% off.
If IE has up to 70% market share, its simply because Windows doesn't allow you to choose your browser like any other system does. If they did, they could just as well throw in the towel on IE. The percentage that use Windows is suspect too. Maybe some have it on hand just for an application or two? I know for a fact that many Windows desktops are running in Linux. (Doesn't an Xterm look great on a Windows desktop? ;)
Finally: (Taco) How many more people say they use Firefox on Slashdot than your logs indicate? I think you see what I mean.
BillSF
Re:IE Almost 70% -- Really? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure Mozilla is capable of making its own 'ActiveX', but I guess they'd be sued as we are talking essentially American businesses.
More important is the fact that ActiveX is a BAD IDEA.
Re:IE Almost 70% -- Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously? That is really freakin weird. Got any (english) links? Not disputing, just curious.
Mozilla plugins == Active X... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone trashes Active X as a security problem while Mozilla plugins get a pass and this is rather silly. The essence of both is that you download a DLL and it runs arbitary code in the process space of the browser (and then hence, often the user). Active X is just a different way of talking to the DLL, nothing more.
If you can run flash plugins, java plugins, and other plugins, inside of a browser, they can and will have the same security problems that plague Active X. It's random binary code that a user gets off of the internet.
SERIOUSLY, ANYONE BITCHING ABOUT ACTIVE X SHOULD JUST READ THIS GODDAMNED LINK.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/plugins/ [mozilla.org]
IT'S THE SAME FRICKING TECHNOLOGY... UNIDENTIFIED BINARY CODE RUNNING IN THE SAME ADDRESS SPACE AS THE BROWSER.
DUH.
Re:Mozilla plugins == Active X... (Score:5, Informative)
1. ActiveX is an all-encompassing Microsoft object-handling infrastructure (descendant of OLE, DDE, COM and DCOM) that is also implemented as a part of remotely-installable code in a browser. A page with ActiveX controls can only work if ActiveX controls are allowed to run in a browser, and Windows permission models prevents any kind of isolation, so this technology is inherently insecure regardless of the purpose of the controls.
2. Mozilla plugins are applications that use browser's interface model. They can be installed or uninstalled to view various kinds of data identified by MIME Content-Type. Same type of data can be handled by different plugins or external applications, and pages can easily make plugins-supported data optional. Also it's important that page is not tied direcly to any executable code -- user has to install plugin like any other application.
The only plugin that was ever used for control of navigation was Flash -- and the idea became very unpopular very soon because it lacks browser-provided infrastructure (history, bookmarks, cookie management). On the other hand, ActiveX is primarily used for either highy intrusive things that are meant to break security models (Windows updates, antiviruses, not to mention viruses and worms themselves) or serve as a replacement for IE abysmal support for scripting and interactive graphics.
They are both DLLs. (Score:4, Insightful)
At the end of the day, both IE Active X controls and Mozilla plugins have the same fundamental problem. They are native code DLLs, and so, cannot be verified so easily by the browser when downloaded and so a user could always install a plug in, when running as administrator, that could call DeleteFile or any other Windows API.
The most interesting promise in plugins is Google Chrome, which allows for verifiable native code and thus sandboxing of plugins. However, as you already pointed out, this only really matters because, you can't set ACLs to functions under Windows, only to users.
The ideal mechanism for DLLs, that is internet safe, would be to be able to say that a caller could specify the permissions of the DLL when it was running. So, if I were writing a FireFox or an IE, or some sort of internet loadable thing, I could say, yeah sure, go ahead and let me load up this DLL, and I'll just tag it so that it can only call a certain set of Windows OS functions, and for that matter, only a set of Windows OS functions with a particular set of handles. Like, the DLL's functions could only call GDI functions with the DC I supplied. I would also like to say that the DLL could only access certain pages of memory. For that matter, I would like to be able to do that to my own application, so that, a buffer overrun or some other malicious code couldn't do anything... other than hose me myself, and even then, my own internal states and document would be protected.
I would bet that you could hack some of this into Windows, basically by modifying the way GetProcAddress and LoadLibrary worked. To LoadLibrary you could add a permissions mask that would, for that HINSTANCE, modify how that library's GetProcAddress worked. So, if loaded up a library, I could set it up so that when it called GetProcAddress, to say, find out where DeleteFile was, it would instead redirect itself to my sandbox chumpy saying that this was a no-no.
This would improve matters, but it would not be perfect. Ultimately, I think, the whole mechanism of a function call would need to have an associated "allowed" set of function calls be associated with it. IF there was maybe some chumpy in the kernel that would say, "just block all these syscalls", but even then, that would only address the file system type of stuff, which is good, but you also want to use that mechanism to cover everything else. It may well turn out that everything has to be a file in order to make this sort of safe and securable sandboxing actually work.
I guess my question to Linux people would be, doesn't Red Hat have something like this in its enhanced security? Like, you can at least tag applications with permissions but could it work with function calls?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Under systems that use X11 the solution is trivial -- plugin is a wrapper that runs a separate process under another user ID, embedded in a window. Then plugin's permissions can be pretty much anything configured for that user (plus anything configured with capabilities if anyone would bother using them). X11 controls access to display, filesystem controls access to files, capabilities control everything else, with all kinds of combinations.
I don't think, anyone bothered to go that far, however nspluginwrap
Firefox has best cross-platform appeal (Score:4, Insightful)
Safari does not, if you notice the marketshare for various versions of safari 96%+ of safari users are using Mac versions.
Firefox has been just about the most successful open source project in history, it has broken beyond the geek domain to the general public. It addressed a need for a reasonably secure easy to use web browser. It runs mostly the same on mac or windows or linux so so people can let their friends use it and they comfortable and familiar with it.
People who would never touch linux see firefox and they will say "Hey can I use your internet" they dont know its linux and they dont care.
You'll see WAR (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will not take this lying down. When Java started eating into VB, Microsoft plunged tens of billions into dot-net, and for the most part stopped the bleeding.
A focused MS can produce like nothing else. Prepare to see gobs of features added to IE. It will be comparable to making Emacs look like Notepad when the dust settles.
IE has stayed mostly the same for most of the decade. This is probably about to change. They'll probably add music and video managers, spell-checkers, text-box history savers, better widgets such as editable data grids, email/Outlook integration, history searching, Google-like hard-drive searching, kitchen sink, etc.
Ntescape all over again (Score:5, Interesting)
Increased Use of iPhones, Etc (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more people are buying iPhones (and other handhelds) and using them to surf the web.
Not to replace their normal browsing, just to browse the web more.
This report is very slim on details (it doesn't even say where the metrics came from), but I'm going on a hunch here that it's not so much Firefox is gaining in popularity, but that overall usage of the web is increasing and moreso with devices that IE is not on.
Some simplified math: If 8 people use IE and 2 use Firefox, IE has an 80% share. Now add 2 more people to the party, both on iPhone/Safari, and IE's market share drops to 66%.
I honestly don't think Firefox is making a dent in IE for the desktop, when you compare it to the beating it's taking elsewhere. It's clear that Microsoft, if it wants to retain dominance in the browser market, needs to do something with the handheld sector and quickly. PocketIE is great for sites that are mobile-ready, but for everything else it lacks and is driving people away.
Won't matter for much longer... (Score:4, Insightful)
since Windows 7 is getting rave reviews, once it comes out, IE marketshare will go back up, I'm guessing. *shrug*
It's actually much worse for IE (Score:5, Informative)
usage stats vs. *MARKET*share (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure *MARKET*share means what you think it does? Microsoft only "sells" IE as packaged with XP, Vista and Windows Mobile. Few customers license the Trident layout engine. It's no wonder IE has shit for marketshare.
The Mozilla foundation does pretty well for themselves. Not a huge moneymaker but they're afloat and doing ok.
Opera is also doing great licensing their browser and its components all over the place.
Internet Explorer simply isn't a moneymaker for Microsoft. Microsoft probably spends more money maintaining IE than they do selling/licensing it.
Re:This isn't my fault... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:For fucks sake people... please... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about NOT pointing out that more than two thirds of users on this planet are still browsing the net with IE -
I imaging that just about 2/3rds of people fall into those categories. Those that are scared of their computer probably think that Firefox is a virus because it wasn't pre-installed at the factory, these people also are the type to still have the Dell wallpaper still as their desktop background because changing it might somehow break their computer. These are the older people or people who don't really understand that the worst they can do to their $1000 is delete all their data.
Those that use their computers very little usually think of their computers only as tools to write e-mails, check blogs, and get on iTunes. They don't care about their browsers, they don't care about most anything on their computer. They might know how to play FreeCell but thats about it. This is a lot of students and working people.
And it is self-explanatory about those who have other people manage their computers, they just lack the access to change the browser or are afraid of getting yelled at by their computer-illiterate CEO because they installed Firefox even though it would be better than the IE6 currently installed on the company's desktop.
So really, 1/3rd of computer users know how to actually *use* a computer and have root access on their boxes. Or they just use Mac/Linux and wouldn't use IE.
Re:For fucks sake people... please... (Score:5, Interesting)
Get over yourself already.
Used to be web *was* IE and people were reduced to fool web pages with bogus client ID to get working IE web code instead of terrible buggy netscape 4.x code or just simple "get IE" -banner.
2/3rd is still a lot but it was 90% a little while ago and it could be perfectly justified to develop a new site IE only.
With these figures, in 2009 new sites designed have even stronger reason to cater for the "other" demographic.
Too bad there's no credible alternative to vista or vista 2nd release in sight for your average gaming-oriented PC. I wouldn't use linux for general desktop stuff either, too much pain if there's no ideological reason to go there. And the other notable requires joining a cult with the membership fee charged in overpriced hardware.
Re:For fucks sake people... please... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a "trend." Snapshot statistics are not important. Trends are very important. This has been going on since 2002. If you lose 5% browser-share share every year consistently, eventually you go away. It happened to Netscape, and now we know it can happen to IE.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's control. If the majority use IE, then MS can push out their proprietary standards that will force everyone else to buy their development products, and maybe use their server platform.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay let's start with the obvious
1> IE being popular means it makes sense to run a windows server to maximize compatibility for businesses.
2> Search traffic gets sent to MSN by IE.
3> Microsoft can dictate coding standards forcing other browsers and coders to have trouble competing.
Then of course the fact some websites won't work with anything but IE (because they can't be bothered to tweak for other browsers too) and of course the homepage of IE will be msn. Add on top of that Microsoft will make other coding software- which of course will easily be the best in line with its browser.
Of course you can just take the line that Microsoft, Apple and Google are all putting serious money into this market- so it HAS to be hugely valuable for some reason.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Controlling the way that people access computing is a big, big deal.
If you control the channel you get to call the shots in a ton of (even tangentially related) ways.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"I've never understood all the broohaha over browsers."
The browser is the gateway to all modern on-line consumer activity. If Microsoft controlled the browser, web sites would be forced to run Microsoft's IIS web server (because Internet Explorer would not behave, at all, with anything else). That would give Microsoft total control over all online commerce. Web sites would then have to pay Microsoft whatever it wanted, or cease doing business.
Microsoft would then tie it's browser and/or server into its o
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are on crack! "most people" don't have a clue what a user agent is.
The parent is beyond stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything, the stats are more skewed by the more-technically-inclined FF users changing their UA so that crappy websites don't break just because they fail to see the magic "IE / Windows" keywords.
Re:The parent is beyond stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
..."Firefox really has a much higher share because of all the users who (do what you said)"...
If mozilla would pull their heads out of their asses and do what I said, they'd take over another 15% easily.
Notice how the graph in TFA dips on the weekend--and also how the article comments "IE6 loses a lot of share on the weekend"?
Most people are at home on the weekend. They install Firefox on their local PC and surf the net.
But at work, people are still stuck with Microsoft shit. Why? Mozilla still hasn't released an MSI of Firefox.
I admin servers for several companies. If I could simply push out a copy of Firefox using Group Policy, I would give firefox about 250 additional users first thing tomorrow morning.
The moment Mozilla makes it easy for corporations using Windows and Active Directory to deploy their software--plus add the ability to control things like the home page via Group Policy, they'll be set.
But until they do, I'm not going around to 200 computers every few weeks to install or update Firefox.
Re:The parent is beyond stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Why oh why does the world think the need this level of granular control? To all the PHB out there who think your so smart to make the bloated ass corp intranet site everyones' home page and then lock that down, you need to find better ways to spend your time. Let me set the damn thing to about:blank and I'll use the portal when I need to rather than everytime I fire up a browser.