Adoption of Internet Explorer 8 Slows To 2.02 Percent
Adoption of Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer Web browser appeared to be leveling off Monday after peaking at 2.58 percent of all Internet users over the weekend, reports Net Applications. IE8′s share of the global market was down to 2.02 percent on Monday at noon, equivalent to the new browser’s adoption rate at 5 p.m. Friday — the first full business day after its release.
Microsoft’s relatively quiet rollout of IE8 stands in stark contrast to the excitement that Mozilla generated when it released Firefox 3 to great fanfare on June 17. By the start of the following month, Mozilla’s new browser had already captured a 4.34 percent share of the global browser market.
One reason for IE8′s slow adoption is clearly due to Internet Explorer’s enduring strength as the Web platform of choice among enterprises, which are always cautious when it comes to adopting a new browser, noted Gartner Research Vice President and Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver. “While the promise of browser-based applications was that migration would not be necessary, some applications are still written to specific browsers,” Silver said.
Enterprise Caution
This helps explain why IE6, which was introduced in 2001, still has 18.85 percent of the global browser market, just behind the 19.11 percent share held by Firefox 3. “IE6 seems to be a particular problem, with many IE6 applications not working properly on IE7 or IE8,” Silver said.
“This has prevented many organizations from upgrading beyond IE6 and has even delayed some Vista migrations,” Silver said. “This is likely to continue being a problem in the Windows 7 time frame as, again, IE6 cannot be run on that platform.”
On the consumer side, IE8′s slow gallop out the starting gate suggests that Microsoft hasn’t made a good case for why users should upgrade from previous Internet Explorer releases or switch from…
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