Remember a decade ago when IE was the only browser game in town? Keeping up with the browser market was like watching paint dry. Conventional wisdom was that Microsoft had the market wrapped up and Netscape's slow demise only confirmed that you couldn't make money, making browsers.
Well, that isn't the case any more is it? Even if you disregard Mozilla's big announcement the one billionth Firefox download as pure hype, there's no denying that the browser market is more diverse than it's ever been. Check out the latest numbers from W3Counter global browser statistics (July 2009) -
Compare those numbers with a year ago (July 2008) and you'll see that overall IE has lost significant share (down to 52.9% from 60.6%) as Firefox has picked up steam (up to over 32%) and other players have emerged, most notably Google Chrome.
What do these numbers and the emergence of the browser wars tell us?
The browser is strategic - Google's introduction of Chrome is confirmation that the browser isn't just commodity, it's a strategic battleground for the desktop/netbook/mobile user experience of the future. In the emerging new world of netbooks, mobile devices and cloud computing, the idea of the operating system is radically altered. The OS needs to be lightweight and secure but the real sandbox for application isn't the OS, it's the browser. Data persistence and application logic processing has shifted to the cloud, reducing the burden on the OS.
It's all about Javascript - 2-3 years ago, all the focus on web access was on security and browsers were under scrutiny for the security features. But the future of the browser market is about javascript processing. After all, javascript is becoming the de-facto programming language of the Web. Starting first with the preponderance of AJAX followed by the increasing emergence of Rich Internet Apps (RIA), browsers are required to do more javascript processing. This means optimizing processing for these scripts is a critical benchmark for browsers.
It's not over till it's over - changes in market share seem slow to come by but the browser wars are actually just starting to heat up. Big questions loom over the future of where things will go. Will Google's market share pick up if Chrome OS takes root with the netbook market? With IE8, Microsoft seems to have made significant progress but is it enough to stem the general defection from IE? Will Firefox adoption hit a wall?
You may want to stay tuned because it may tell the tale of what your user experience will look like in the future.
Some further food for thought... and predictions
1. Explorer - this is still Microsoft's trump card. It's one of their best products that works. And to the zillions of internet users who don't care about browsers - it works, it's preinstalled - they won't change. It's the same mentality of people who say a car "just gets them from point A to B."
2. Firefox - this is NOW Google's bane. Google spent a lot of time helping Firefox get to where it it. This browser is for the Microsoft haters or the mildly internet savvy. But Google threw these guys under the bus with Chrome...
3. Chrome - this is Google's fan-boy toy. Firefox users feel slighted with Google releasing Chrome. Explorer users don't care. That leaves the Google fan-boys (much like the Apple fan-boys) to use this browser. And guess what... right now everybody loves Apple... but not everybody loved Google.
Prediction - next 5 years.. Explorer 50%, Firefox 46%.... Chrome 4%.
Percy - thanks for your thoughts and predictions. I agree that IE will still have a big market share - but look at the trend for IE - it's going the wrong way. However, there;s probably a natural floor as because there is a class of users who will simply go with what's preinstalled.
I wouldnt count Google out either - while they don't own the OS, through their many digital assets - search, gmail. youtube, etc... they have "channels" to promote Chrome. It may end up a 3 way race in 3 years time