The browser market is fundamentally different today compare with a few years ago. The latest market share provided by Net Applications leaves Internet Explorer with a 67.77% market share. This is down nine percent from a year ago but the trend becomes even more pronounced when looking even further back such as the above 90% market share in late 2004.
While Microsoft owned the browser market five years ago, it is now a diverse market place with Firefox continuously growing and after passing the 20% mark in late 2008 and now listed at 23.84%. This is an annual increase of about five percent. The diverse nature of the browser market is fortunate as web apps gain increasing importance. Hence, the technology to access the web is not controlled or dictated by one company or group.
Safari has increased its market share to 3.53% which is about a percent higher than a year ago. The increase for Safari is currently not primarily driven by the browser itself but by the success of Apple's products.
The newest player, Google's Chrome, remains at a modest share of 1.79% but the product is still very much in its infancy. Google is pretty open and clear about its ambitions, as articulated in a recent interview - serving as a catalyst to improve the JavaScript capabilities of all browsers seems to be one of the principal motives behind the project.
How will the future browser market look like? If the current trends will remain steady may we in two years have a situation with IE at 50%, Firefox 30%, Safari 15%, and Chrome at 5%. However, that assumes that there are no disruptive change.
Showing posts with label firefox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firefox. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
State of the Browser Market - Firefox Hits 20%
Firefox has exceeded a 20% market share according to Net Applications. The survey is primarily focused on the US browser market. Firefox appears stronger in Europe and a recent survey by Xiti Monitor of France pegged its market share to just over 30% in Europe. The trend is clear and it's even more pronounced in certain segments such as the web tech crowd using the W3Schools resources. The site has tracked browser statistics of its users since 2002 and Internet Explorer's started with a 85% share but this number has been decimated to 47% in November 2008.
Let's examine the competition between Firefox and Internet Explorer by looking at the value proposition of Firefox. Firefox offers rich functionality provided by the large number of available extensions (add-ons). This is a very successful way to leverage the community based nature of Firefox/Mozilla and it's difficult for Microsoft to replicate. Security is another aspect. Firefox has not stayed clear of security issues but the problems have not been on the same level as with Explorer. The recent vulnerability in December 2008 affecting all versions of Explorer was one of those very bad vulnerabilities putting the system of the user in jeopardy.
Microsoft has two major advantages - a fundamental lock on the enterprise browser market and the ability to integrate the browser with other products such as the Windows OS and specific applications. However, it's apparent that the company has been unable to use the latter to its advantage without getting in trouble with regulators or creating security problems. But the company still has time for a turn-around considering it claims 60-70% of the overall browser market.
There are also some smaller players in the browser market such as Apple's Safari, Opera, and the most recent addition - Chrome from Google. These browsers are not in any way serious competitors in overall market share but they change the landscape by reinforcing that the web is not a single browser environment. Safari and Chrome may actually not primarily aim at maximize its market share in the short run but create a narrow and specialized market around products such as, in the case with Apple, related to iTunes and iPhone. Nevertheless, the benefactor in the browser war at this juncture is definately Firefox.
Let's examine the competition between Firefox and Internet Explorer by looking at the value proposition of Firefox. Firefox offers rich functionality provided by the large number of available extensions (add-ons). This is a very successful way to leverage the community based nature of Firefox/Mozilla and it's difficult for Microsoft to replicate. Security is another aspect. Firefox has not stayed clear of security issues but the problems have not been on the same level as with Explorer. The recent vulnerability in December 2008 affecting all versions of Explorer was one of those very bad vulnerabilities putting the system of the user in jeopardy.
Microsoft has two major advantages - a fundamental lock on the enterprise browser market and the ability to integrate the browser with other products such as the Windows OS and specific applications. However, it's apparent that the company has been unable to use the latter to its advantage without getting in trouble with regulators or creating security problems. But the company still has time for a turn-around considering it claims 60-70% of the overall browser market.
There are also some smaller players in the browser market such as Apple's Safari, Opera, and the most recent addition - Chrome from Google. These browsers are not in any way serious competitors in overall market share but they change the landscape by reinforcing that the web is not a single browser environment. Safari and Chrome may actually not primarily aim at maximize its market share in the short run but create a narrow and specialized market around products such as, in the case with Apple, related to iTunes and iPhone. Nevertheless, the benefactor in the browser war at this juncture is definately Firefox.
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