Battling browsers are back. Just as in the 1990s, when Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape's Navigator fought each other for supremacy, today Mozilla's Firefox browser is trying to gain traction over IE. This latest skirmish, however, goes beyond just browsing the web. Microsoft's security problems have left an opening for upstarts like Firefox and could lead to other products taking market share from the software giant, say experts at Wharton.
As far as browsers go, customers are disgruntled with Microsoft. The non-profit Mozilla Foundation, formed in July 2003 with funding from America Online's Netscape unit to promote open source web software, cites 25 million downloads of its Firefox browser in the last 100 days. Web measurement company WebSideStory reports that Firefox had a U.S. market share of 5.69% as of Feb. 18 compared to Internet Explorer's 89.85%. While it's far too early to call Microsoft's browser an also-ran, Internet Explorer had a market share of 95.48% in June 2004, says WebSideStory. Globally, the trend toward Firefox is the same. On Feb. 28, Amsterdam-based web analytics company Onestat.com put Firefox's market share at 8.45% globally, up 1% from November 2004.
"The Internet Explorer is a terrible browser and it has security problems," says Wharton legal studies professor Dan Hunter. "Firefox is just a better browser, but I would argue that its market share gains have come because spyware and other hacks plague Explorer."
Deirdre Woods, associate dean and chief information officer at Wharton, points to an increasing tendency among users to look at alternatives. "People, especially in the open source community, want another winner [besides] Microsoft." Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach says, "the lesson here is that open source can create a slick consumer-friendly product.
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