IE market shares slip under 70 percent; Windows drops below 90 percent

Internet Explorer's market shares dipped below 70 percent for the first time in the wake of the launch of Google's Chrome web browser, and slightly better showings for Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox web browsers. Internet Explorer 8, which is still in development, isn't expected to turn the tide. This is due to its higher penetration in corporations, which is always slower to change.

At the same time, the market share of Microsoft's Windows operating system plummeted to just below 90 percent of the market. This is a figure not seen since Windows 3.11 (a 15-year low, according to TG Daily). This is in sharp contrast to the peak of 97.5 percent from 2002 to 2003.

The figure comes from a company called Net Applications Inc., which monitors a number of websites for systems powered by Windows. Of course, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing, Vince Vizzaccarro, noted that the slip in November could be attributed to the higher than average number of non-work days, which could skew the figures toward Macs at home as opposed to the Windows PCs in the office.

More troublesome for the Redmond-based company perhaps, is the fact that the slow gains by Windows Vista do not appear sufficient to regain ground lost by Windows XP, as well as older versions of Windows operating systems. Perhaps this helps to explain Microsoft's apparent effort to accelerate the launch of Windows 7, as well as allowing the venerable Windows XP to be prolonged for Netbook makers.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at TG Daily
- check out this article at ComputerWorld
- check out this article at CNNMoney