Google’s Chrome developer team has a good reason to celebrate. For the very first time. Google surpassed IE8 with a single version of its browser. For two days, Chrome 14 maintained the role of, the world’s most popular browser as it trumped IE8 by more than half a point of market share.
IE8 has kept the lead in the global browser market continuously since January 27, 2010 when it claimed the crown from Firefox 3.5. IE8 share peaked at 31.35% in April of this year, but has dropped consistently as Chrome grew stronger and IE9 has begun to slowly replace IE8 on newer PCs that run Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7. Last Saturday, Chrome 14 passed IE8 with a share of 22.93% versus 22.92%. On Sunday, Chrome 14 climbed to 23.18% vs. 22.6% for IE8.
IE8 was launched on March 19, 2009 and partially replaced with IE9 on March 14, 2011. With IE9, Microsoft has begun ignoring operating systems prior to Windows 7 and has begun its shift to a cloud-based app model based on HTML5 that will surface with Windows 8. According to the company (and data provided by NetApplications), IE9 now has 22.1% market share on Windows 7 systems, followed by 18.1% share for Chrome and 15.7% share for Firefox 6 and 7. According to StatCounter, IE9 had a market share of 9.99% on Sunday, which was a new record for the browser. By the way, Windows 7 had 39.04% share as Windows XP fell to 40.59%, the market research firm said.
Microsoft’s strategy to focus on Windows 7 makes sense, as it will depend on IE9′s popularity to market HTML5 apps to Windows 7/8 users effectively. However, it appears that Google’s chrome is cleaning up market shares that IE8 is leaving behind, which should be a concern for Microsoft. A 4-point lead over Chrome on Windows 7 is a far cry from the market share dominance it held over the past 15 years.
Wolfgang Gruener in Business Products on October 03
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