MSIE Market Share Slips Below 90%

The success of the Firefox 1.0 browser, released last month, is taking a toll on the market dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Long considered the industry standard browser, IE has come under fire for its security flaws, so much so that several major institutions have abandoned it altogether, and many IT security professionals advise against using it.

Meanwhile, Firefox marked its 10 millionth download last Sunday, and presently has a market share of about 4 percent. This, combined with the popularity of other browsers such as Opera, have pushed IE's market share below 90% for the first time in years, according to the Dutch-based Internet metrics firm OneStat.com. Though other metrics firms continue to rank IE much higher, OneStat gave IE an 88.9% market share in late November.

Clearly, even an 88.9% market share is dominant. But 2004 may be remembered as the year that IE suffered a critical loss of consumer confidence. What Microsoft does to remedy the situation will determine its position and influence in home and corporate computing for years to come.

Source: ZDNet