Judgment made on March 31, 2009: Microsoft's IE8 did not reach 5% market share, which the community got right. -- The Industry Standard
Microsoft just released Internet Explorer 8, which received mixed reviews. Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg says IE8 is "a big improvement" to its predecessor IE7 and a "closer competitor" to Mozilla's Firefox browser.
ComputerWorld claims IE8 performs is slower than the other browsers. Google Chrome is four times faster than IE8. Firefox runs 59% quicker and Apple's latest version of Safari is nearly 50% faster.
Even still, the latest Microsoft browser is steadily gaining market share, according to Net Apps. Thirty hours after its launch, IE8 has gained almost a 2% market share. Google Chrome has yet to hit a 2% market share since its September debut.
Prediction: Internet Explorer 8 reaches a 5% market share by March 31, 2009. Net Apps Market Share will be used to judge this prediction.
Image: Microsoft
| Betting Closes: | Mar 31 2009 | Current Consensus: | 3.56% | Total Bets: | 16 |
| Today's Change: | -0.36% | ||||
| Life Time High: | 48.75% | ||||
| Life Time Low: | 3.56% |
Comments
Market share already dropping from its peak of 1.99%. Not likely to break 5% by end of month.
It is worth noting that the only reason IE has the new features that it has recently added in v7 and v8 is because Firefox rose to prominence to provide competition. Without competition, IE would probably resemble IE4 and this would stifle innovation on the web. Recently, there are other browsers entering the fray vying for market share: http://statowl.com/web_browser_market_share.php
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