Seriously. There is no reason to get excited about download numbers yet. Microsoft may have bragged about those 2.35 million IE9 downloads within 24 hours, but that was entirely unintentional. Microsoft did not really want you to download IE9. The IE9 update isn’t even active yet. So don’t get too excited over those gazillion Firefox and Chrome downloads, please.
You have to wonder sometimes. What is the purpose of launching a product when you aren’t ready for a launch? Is that a recipe for disaster and if you have learned in the past that such an approach is likely to fail, why would you do it again? For the reason of keeping a tradition?
All right. It was just a matter of time until Microsoft would reply to the headlines that stated a thousand times how David Mozilla crushed Goliath Microsoft in first day, second day, third day, etc. browser downloads. We had some speculations and bets here how Microsoft would be spinning the story in an attempt to make its own browser downloads look better against the 45.5 million Firefox 4 downloads (at the time of this writing). For the record, Microsoft has only said – so far – that 2.35 million IE9 packages were downloaded on the first day of its availability. There has been no update so far, but the daily market share numbers that have been posted for IE9 suggest that the total downloads are less than 10 million (since March 14).
Microsoft said that it only counts completed downloads, while it suggests that others may also count every started and not completed download. We would, however go a step further and suggest to only count those browsers that are downloaded and actually used. If that is the case, then we know that only about 25% all those 40 million downloaded IE9s (36 million betas and RCs, plus those 2.35 million + X final IE9s – Microsoft said that 90% of IE9 final downloads came from non-beta and non-RC users) are in use (if we compare the market share numbers of IE9 and Firefox 4, as provided by StatCounter.)
Lowering Expectations
So it only makes sense that Microsoft now says that the update process hasn’t started yet. In fact, the IE9 release to the web (RTW) was just activated on Windows Update yesterday – or two weeks after the initial release. And that update only works for IE9 Beta and RC users. IE8 users can’t automatically update the browser yet. There has been no information (“sometime next month”) when that update will be turned on. Seriously, Microsoft? Should that browser have been launched later? A lot later and when everything is ready? I mean – everything? That strategy reminds me a bit of the graphics card paper launches of the mid-2000s when Nvidia and ATI announced out graphics cards to the press no one could actually buy, but simply admire on a spec sheet. Admitted, you can download IE9 (as long as you have Windows 7 or Vista SP2), yourself, but the lack of the update process is a serious miss.
You can almost always spin a story in a different direction and Microsoft finds lots of others to blame, just not itself. It’s the web developers who are to blame this time. They aren’t ready to fully support IE9. In fact, Microsoft asks us to ignore IE9 share and wait a few months until there is going to me a more reasonable view of IE9 downloads. However, there is an even more creative way to explore IE9 usage share: Addressable user base.
We are told that we should really triple IE9′s share, because it is an unfair comparison to Firefox and Chrome as those browsers support all Windows operating systems and IE9 does not. Huh? So we are blaming Mozilla and Google for a screw-up of Microsoft? Isn’t it Microsoft’s problem that it decided not to support Windows XP – and more than half of the OS market today? Microsoft may be focusing on Windows 7, but that won’t help the company in the fight for market shares. Those users Microsoft loses today, may be tough to win back. Essentially, Microsoft leaves the entire Windows XP market open to be attacked by Mozilla and Google. Tripling IE9 market share on paper may help Microsoft’s marketing, but it just won’t work in overall browser statistics.
The browser game has changed dramatically and browser market share development strongly depends on update cycles these days. Google updates Chrome every 6 weeks, Mozilla will roll out a final version every 16 weeks and previews of Firefox 5 are already available. Microsoft needs more than a month to just activate its update servers and is still on a 2-year development cycle for IE. Besides bleeding plain browser market share, Microsoft will soon have to surrender technology trends to a much stronger competition: For example, With Firefox 4 being available, a growing Chrome and a loyal Opera user base, Google’s WebM video format will soon be supported by nearly half of all browser users (according to StatCounter). Microsoft’s bet on H.264 in IE9 is unlikely to pay off.
We aren’t sure whether the most recent blog post from Microsoft is the actual inside opinion on IE9 downloads inside Microsoft or whether it is just an attempt to limit the IE9 launch problems. If it is the real problem, Microsoft needs to get its ship in order and adapt to a changing browser environment quickly. Otherwise, Chrome and Firefox will simply roll over Microsoft and turn IE9 into an irrelevant browser by the time IE10 is released.
IE9 is, in our view, a great browser, even if it has its weaknesses in its target area. But the marketing behind it is a mess.
You have to wonder sometimes. What is the purpose of launching a product when you aren’t ready for a launch? Is that a recipe for disaster and if you have learned in the past that such an approach is likely to fail, why would you do it again? For the reason of keeping a tradition?
All right. It was just a matter of time until Microsoft would reply to the headlines that stated a thousand times how David Mozilla crushed Goliath Microsoft in first day, second day, third day, etc. browser downloads. We had some speculations and bets here how Microsoft would be spinning the story in an attempt to make its own browser downloads look better against the 45.5 million Firefox 4 downloads (at the time of this writing). For the record, Microsoft has only said – so far – that 2.35 million IE9 packages were downloaded on the first day of its availability. There has been no update so far, but the daily market share numbers that have been posted for IE9 suggest that the total downloads are less than 10 million (since March 14).
Microsoft said that it only counts completed downloads, while it suggests that others may also count every started and not completed download. We would, however go a step further and suggest to only count those browsers that are downloaded and actually used. If that is the case, then we know that only about 25% all those 40 million downloaded IE9s (36 million betas and RCs, plus those 2.35 million + X final IE9s – Microsoft said that 90% of IE9 final downloads came from non-beta and non-RC users) are in use (if we compare the market share numbers of IE9 and Firefox 4, as provided by StatCounter.)
Lowering Expectations
So it only makes sense that Microsoft now says that the update process hasn’t started yet. In fact, the IE9 release to the web (RTW) was just activated on Windows Update yesterday – or two weeks after the initial release. And that update only works for IE9 Beta and RC users. IE8 users can’t automatically update the browser yet. There has been no information (“sometime next month”) when that update will be turned on. Seriously, Microsoft? Should that browser have been launched later? A lot later and when everything is ready? I mean – everything? That strategy reminds me a bit of the graphics card paper launches of the mid-2000s when Nvidia and ATI announced out graphics cards to the press no one could actually buy, but simply admire on a spec sheet. Admitted, you can download IE9 (as long as you have Windows 7 or Vista SP2), yourself, but the lack of the update process is a serious miss.
You can almost always spin a story in a different direction and Microsoft finds lots of others to blame, just not itself. It’s the web developers who are to blame this time. They aren’t ready to fully support IE9. In fact, Microsoft asks us to ignore IE9 share and wait a few months until there is going to me a more reasonable view of IE9 downloads. However, there is an even more creative way to explore IE9 usage share: Addressable user base.
We are told that we should really triple IE9′s share, because it is an unfair comparison to Firefox and Chrome as those browsers support all Windows operating systems and IE9 does not. Huh? So we are blaming Mozilla and Google for a screw-up of Microsoft? Isn’t it Microsoft’s problem that it decided not to support Windows XP – and more than half of the OS market today? Microsoft may be focusing on Windows 7, but that won’t help the company in the fight for market shares. Those users Microsoft loses today, may be tough to win back. Essentially, Microsoft leaves the entire Windows XP market open to be attacked by Mozilla and Google. Tripling IE9 market share on paper may help Microsoft’s marketing, but it just won’t work in overall browser statistics.
The browser game has changed dramatically and browser market share development strongly depends on update cycles these days. Google updates Chrome every 6 weeks, Mozilla will roll out a final version every 16 weeks and previews of Firefox 5 are already available. Microsoft needs more than a month to just activate its update servers and is still on a 2-year development cycle for IE. Besides bleeding plain browser market share, Microsoft will soon have to surrender technology trends to a much stronger competition: For example, With Firefox 4 being available, a growing Chrome and a loyal Opera user base, Google’s WebM video format will soon be supported by nearly half of all browser users (according to StatCounter). Microsoft’s bet on H.264 in IE9 is unlikely to pay off.
We aren’t sure whether the most recent blog post from Microsoft is the actual inside opinion on IE9 downloads inside Microsoft or whether it is just an attempt to limit the IE9 launch problems. If it is the real problem, Microsoft needs to get its ship in order and adapt to a changing browser environment quickly. Otherwise, Chrome and Firefox will simply roll over Microsoft and turn IE9 into an irrelevant browser by the time IE10 is released.
IE9 is, in our view, a great browser, even if it has its weaknesses in its target area. But the marketing behind it is a mess.
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