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Web browser market share of all times visualized

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Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#31

Post by tzs »

ghshephard wrote: post #6
btipling wrote: post #3

What happened between 1998 and 1999 that flipped the percentage so dramatically in favor of IE? Was it all the new people joining the internet for the first time who simply clicked the blue e instead of installing netscape or did people abandon netscape in droves?

Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happened. It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platf…

I think people overestimate the effect of bundling. As you note, in 1997 and earlier browser software was sold like spreadsheet or word processor software. By 1997, IE was clearly the better browser technically. It was far less buggy, and it implemented much more of Netscape's proprietary HTML than Netscape implemented of IE's proprietary HTML.

The sales numbers of the retail boxes for both from CompUSA, Egghead, Computer City, and so on reflected this. IE was massively outselling Netscape. Sure, when bundling came alone later, it didn't help Netscape, but I think by that point they were already past the tipping point.

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#32

Post by mxfh »

hmbg wrote: post #29
cinfinity wrote: post #20

This is not a "visualization". It would be far better to do line plots of each browser's market share as a function of time, distinguishing different browsers by color.

Half-agreed. A stacked area chart would be perfect for this.

I would take pretty much anything with a temporal axis over these pie-charts. Also I would favor stacked bars with optional trend lines over area charts in the case of countable annual data like this.

After which amount of data points is it considered recommended to switch to interpolated line/area charts?

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#33

Post by pkorzeniewski »

I can't decide if it's a success that Opera is still on the market, or a failure that after 10 years they still have so minor share. Sure, 1.71% is a lot of users given the size of market, but if you look at the charts they had 0.78% in 2002 so they gained 1% in 10 years.. I don't get it, couldn't they find a way to interest more people in such long time?

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#34

Post by eze »

ghshephard wrote: post #6
btipling wrote: post #3

What happened between 1998 and 1999 that flipped the percentage so dramatically in favor of IE? Was it all the new people joining the internet for the first time who simply clicked the blue e instead of installing netscape or did people abandon netscape in droves?

Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happened. It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platf…

People paid $50+/copy for their browser.

But this stopped precisely in early 1998. Such a major gain for IE from 1997 to 1998 (or before) would have made more sense based on this aspect.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#35

Post by franze »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #33

I can't decide if it's a success that Opera is still on the market, or a failure that after 10 years they still have so minor share. Sure, 1.71% is a lot of users given the size of market, but if you look at the charts they had 0.78% in 2002 so they gained 1% in 10 years.. I don't get it, couldn't they find a way to interest more people in such long time?

if a company is still active after 10 years, earns good money, employes a lot of people and still manages to build good and valuable products, then they are - in my point of view - an impressive success-story.

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#36

Post by simonh »

melling wrote: post #23
ghshephard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happened. It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platf…

"At that time monopoly market share (operating system)" What do you think Microsoft has now? Microsoft isn't quite as lethal at this time, but in all honesty, they still dominate. It's funny to see people complain about Google's 70% search monopoly and Apple's 20-25% iOS walled garden, but 9/10 of the people in the world buy PC's with Microsoft Windows.

Whereas the iPad doesn't count because it's just a toy that's only used for 'consumption'.

First they ignore you....

The reality is about a quarter of global computer sales are Macs, iPads or Android tablets and all those categories are growing rapidly. If you include smartphones in the equation, as some aggressively pro-mobile (but not necessarily wrong) observers do, Microsoft already has a minority platform share.

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#37

Post by ghshephard »

eze wrote: post #34
ghshephard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happened. It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platf…

People paid $50+/copy for their browser. But this stopped precisely in early 1998. Such a major gain for IE from 1997 to 1998 (or before) would have made more sense based on this aspect. [1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html

I remember those days vividly. How do you compete with "Free?"

And, unlike today, where an alternative browser is just a click-away on a high speed link for even the average layperson, the vast majority of the world back then (geeks not included) got their browser through the channel that delivered software to them - and, for most computers users, the operating system was the ultimate channel. Downloading something as huge as an entire browser was not likely undertaken. Your average user had something like a 56 Kilobit modem back in 1998.

So, when the IE browser was free, and bundled through every-channel Microsoft could get their hands on - it was the end of times. Entire buildings on East Middlefield road, Mountain View associated with the consumer/business sales of Netscape Communicator/Navigator were shuttered. The layoffs were apocalyptic.

I'll give it to Microsoft, they certainly cut off Netscape's air supply. Of course, as a result of their actions, The United States Government decided they had violated elements of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 - in particular tying, and that resulted in a decade of oversight that may have done them more harm than Netscape ever would have.

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#38

Post by recoiledsnake »

ghshephard wrote: post #6
btipling wrote: post #3

What happened between 1998 and 1999 that flipped the percentage so dramatically in favor of IE? Was it all the new people joining the internet for the first time who simply clicked the blue e instead of installing netscape or did people abandon netscape in droves?

Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happened. It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platf…

>It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platform) - so they eliminated it (Cut off Netscape's Air supply) - by giving the browser away for free with their operating system - and, because everyone (for most reasonable definitions of everyone) was running Microsoft's operating system on their desktop, there was no longer any need to buy it from Netscape.

And that in turn lead to further addinng fuel to the internet by lowering the barrier to entry for users leading to a feedback loop. $50+ was more than a months salary in many countries.

I am sure many divisions in RIM and Nokia were cut because of Google "dumping" Android for free by leveraging profits from their search(not to mention bundling Chrome with Flash and Java updates leading to the charts in the article). But Android does lead to more people accessing the internet through smartphones and that is a huge net gain to all of us regardless of a few companies getting hurt short term.

Re: Web browser market share of all times visualized

#40

Post by eze »

ghshephard wrote: post #37
eze wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People paid $50+/copy for their browser. But this stopped precisely in early 1998. Such a major gain for IE from 1997 to 1998 (or before) would have made more sense based on this aspect. [1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html

I remember those days vividly. How do you compete with "Free?" And, unlike today, where an alternative browser is just a click-away on a high speed link for even the average layperson, the vast majority of the world back then (geeks not included) got their browser through the channel that delivered software to them - and, for most computers users, the operating system was the ultimate channel. Downloading something a…

A very insightful reply. Thanks.
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