Microsoft's IE 8 misses Windows 7 updraft
Down dooby doo down down
Internet Explorer has continued its gentle drift southwards, having missed any boost from last year's release of IE 8 and the sales onslaught behind Windows 7.
Meanwhile, rival Firefox saw its forward market-share march apparently halted by continued uptake of Google's Chrome for the month of January.
Netmarketshare numbers for January 2009 reveal that Microsoft's browser has lost more than seven per cent market share compared a year ago, taking it to a new low of 62.12 per cent for all versions of IE. The browser is also down from 62.69 per cent in December 2009.
IE 8, released in March 2009, has 22.37 per cent market share, just inching past the browser-that-won't die, IE 6, on 20 per cent. While it was crowing about IE's growth and overlooking the market share decline, Microsoft repeated past calls for customers to abandon IE 6.
The decline in market share for Microsoft's browser came despite what should have been a fillip produced by the sale of new PCs running Windows 7 during the last three months of 2009. Microsoft last week claimed 60 million licenses of Windows 7 have been sold to date, a fact that saw income for its Windows business unit grow 98 per cent to $5.3bn on revenue that also grew 69 per cent to $6.9bn.
Firefox seems to have lost a fraction of its market share to Google's Chrome according to Netmarketshare. Firefox's market share for January was 24.43 per cent versus 24.61 per cent in December. Chrome scored 5.22 per cent, up from 4.63 per cent. A year ago, Firefox had 22.11 per cent market share while Chrome scored 1.52 per cent.
Bootnote
Netmarketshare reported the Redmond, Washington area of Microsoft's home state last month had the largest percentage of Windows 7 users in the US. Forty-two per cent of internet users were on Windows 7 in Microsoft's home city. ®
COMMENTS
Standards compliance
I don't care what browser someone uses, so long as it follows the standards.
I will spec and code to the standards FIRST.
Only then I add charges to make things work on third rate software like IE.
If I have to do a demo, I will use Firefox (or Opera, or Safari, or...) and when people ask why "IE" looks funny I will tell them I am not using IE. I am using a fully standards compliant browser which offers greater portability, stability and security. I'll then fire up another browser to show them. And another. They will all (pretty much to the pixel) look the same.
And then IE. The site will most likely look like vomit. And then I will explain that, because IE does not follow the standards, there is extra work involved in adding in many, many "special cases" for IEs short-comings and foibles.
The look of shock on their faces is sometimes rather amusing.
Standards first and last.
Comply or die; good riddance IE.
Ooo, sore point
In real-world engineering (and other fields), standards compliance is critical. You can go to jail for not following the standards. Why should IT be any different? Badly formatted pages can lead to confusion, confusion can lead to mistakes and mistakes can lead to "Bad Things"(tm). Christ, even moving from one version of IE to another can screw the layout!
IT had-and-soft infrastructure is as critical as using the correct grade steel for your beams. It can (and often is) safety and legally critical to ensure that the correct information is properly presented at all times regardless of access method (and did disabled access occur to you? That is HELPED by following the standards and can be a [often forgotten] legal requirement`).
I have never been fired or even admonished for explaining (to people who need to care and need to know) why standards compliance is important. In fact, they are usually impressed "Here it is on desktop FF...anyone got a Nokia or iPhone? Right, there it is on your phone. No changes need - it just works". Ie will, of course, make it work on IE as well; and that is the point - it needs more work.
You have no idea who I work for or what I do.
So kindly take your ignorant, abusive and aggressive attitude somewhere else.
90% != 62%
I make it only 62% and dropping, and that's assuming both IE8 and IE7 render as badly as IE6 (they don't) and also that customers have only one browser on their systems (they don't).
The look of shock is probably because they suddenly realize that every time they pay for a web site, the cost has been higher for code to work around the non-compliance of M$. Augumented by the high cost of being tied to M$ Office, Excel, and/or Word, the cost of upgrading to Vista and back down to XP, the extra license upgrades because the cheap PC came with Home Basic, etc...
No, it's ABSOLUTELY the right time and place...
It is the part of the role of the developer and designer to educate the client, who more often than not doesn't have a clue about the issues involved in designing a website. I do get bored of explaining to clients that pixel perfection, for instance, across all browsers is an unrealistic expectation*, but it's entirely necessary to explain *why*. One of the reasons, among others, is Microsoft's lack of support for web standards in IE, although to be fair to Microsoft they are trying to fix this -- something that I also explain. The simplicity of the navigation and the overall accessibility of a site can only be achieved with semantic mark-up. No if's, no but's. Design and develop for the web first, browser differences should be dealt with later. '...and while you're being paid to build a site for someone is definitely not it.' is a bad attitude to have, not only for you, but for the web design and development profession as a whole. As a designer I am not only paid to design and develop; I am also, importantly, paid to advise. Just doing what you are told as a designer or developer isn't offering good customer service OR value for money.
'If you actually said that at a demo, all they'd hear is "I do things my way, and you and your customers can just fuck off."' Of course they will! It's all about the relationship that is fostered with the client. If one approaches clients with the zeal of your typical common or garden nerd, then most people will react that way! Just as if you wait until you demo the site, it sounds like excuses!
*http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/
Flakey website
I'm trying to look at the site, but it keeps falling over. Oh look what it is running on, a Microsoft web server, the only thing dodgier than a Microsoft web browser.
