The JKB Marketing Blog

For the first time, Microsofts Internet Explorer has lost market share. Granted, Ie only lost about 1% of its share and it is still the dominant browser on the market garnering a market share over 94%.

But flashing back to 1997, Netscape had the dominant browser. When Microsoft decided to bundle IE into Windows 98, the writing was on the wall for Netscape. IE dominance has grown ever since.

However, being the big dog makes you a target. The continuing security issues for Microsoft and the rise of the open-source movement have opened some chinks in the IE armor. It hasn't helped that IE has not been significantly upgraded since 1999.

Lately, browsers such as Opera, Safari, Netscape 7 and especially Mozilla's Firefox have been consistently adding new converts.

The benefit for consumers is a host of freely available web browsers. As long as the new browsers are standards-compliant, this is great news for web developers and web users alike.