- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
When Microsoft starts pointing to statistics that don't make it look so great, you can expect the company has a strong turnaround plan in place. Today's example: its share of browser usage.
Microsoft, while still the top browser maker, saw Internet Explorer slide as a fraction of worldwide usage from 57.1 percent in December 2010 to 56 percent in January, according to statistics from analytics firm Net Applications released today. That decline continues a years-long trend for the company, which first lost share to Mozilla's Firefox but now is losing it primarily to Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari.
Specifically, from December to January, Mozilla stayed flat at 22.8 percent, Chrome rose from 10 percent to 10.7, Safari rose from 5.9 percent to 6.3 percent, and Opera rose from 2.2 percent to 2.3 percent.
But there's an important detail hidden in the statistics--namely, the makeup of the different versions of IE. Microsoft is actively trying to discourage use of decade-old IE6, which is the bane of Web developers who want to use modern programming features, and to encourage adoption of IE8 and forthcoming IE9.
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