He's just crazy enough to do it!
It’s been coming for a while but, Internet Explorer has finally been toppled from the number spot in Europe. FireFox has taken the crown with 38.11% share to IE’s 37.52% – even though it’s market share has stayed pretty much static around the 40% mark throughout 2010. (Source: StatCounter)
You can see from the graph, it’s the rise of Chrome (sounds like a Michael Bay movie!) that’s really hurting IE’s market share. Chrome’s share tripled during 2010 from 5% to over 15% today and shows no sign of slowing down.
Sacre bleu!
It’s no coincidence though, that this rapid change has come about since the Microsoft’s antitrust settlement with the EU led to the “browser ballot” being integrated into Windows 7 installs. So in some ways, Microsoft are victims of the success of their own operating system (that, and the fact that IE9 is still not ready for launch!). For 12 months now Microsoft’s headstart with the whole “the internet is the blue E” crowd has been eaten away and people are beginning to realise that a browser is software that can be chosen, not just an invisible portal to the Internet.
And that can only be a good thing for everybody.
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