Summary
Renewed or strengthened competition in the browser market - which might have been thought of as commoditized and irretrievably dominated by Microsoft - can only be good for customers. The challenge for Microsoft is whether Internet Explorer 8, still in beta version, can stem or even reverse the steady decline in Explorer's market share which has been a feature of the past few years.
Analysis
The year just ended saw the entry of Google into the browser market (Chrome) as well as new releases from traditional browser competitors. Google hopes that building a browser optimized for its own online applications will make it an effective competitor against Microsoft which has been a little slow in coming to market with an online offering. Some indications from webmasters are that Chrome has already achieved a noticeable market share of a few percent. Chrome is now out of beta, although still only available for use with Vista and XP.
The market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been steadily declining in recent years (this article reports the continuation of a trend), as its main alternative Firefox (which also faces a new competitive challenge from Chrome) has been consistently chipping away at its lead. Microsoft looks unlikely to release its latest browser, Internet Explorer 8, before the second quarter of 2009, although this version has been in beta for the best part of a year. According to Microsoft a final beta will be issued in the early part of 2009. Other competitors include Opera, whose version 10 is expected in 2009, and Apple's Safari, which has become very visible in the mobile arena thanks to the iPhone. So the challenge for Microsoft is whether it can improve Explorer sufficiently and soon enough to stem, or even reverse the decline in its popularity.
