Where else could you find a knock-down, drag out fight for market share among software products given away for free except in the browser market? It’s like 1999 never ended, except now Microsoft has to deal with three contenders: Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. So how are they doing? Datamation finds out.
According to the latest browser market share figures, Microsoft saw its Internet Explorer (IE) product continue to slide.
However, as Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) IE dropped, Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Chrome browser continues to pick up speed, even outstripping Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Safari in the past two months.
That’s according to the latest market share figures for January from Web analytics firm Net Applications.
Microsoft’s IE finished January with a total of 62.18 percent of the market, down slightly more than a half a percentage point from December’s 62.69 percent. That continues IE’s glide path since this time last February, when the browser enjoyed 69.23 percent of the market, and way down from market dominance of 90 percent and higher a few years ago.
The release of IE8 in mid-March hasn’t helped either.
Neither, apparently, have robust sales of Windows 7 — both bundled with new PCs and sold as a boxed product — since Oct. 22 when consumer editions of Windows 7 launched.