Will Internet Explorer Rebound?

While often quickly replaced and looked down upon by technically savvy individuals, one cannot argue that Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer web browser is the most widely-used web browser in existence, carrying about half of the world-wide market-share according to recent estimates.  While a market-share of this magnitude is definitely noteworthy, it’s also undeniable that it is a number significantly lower than even their most moderate market-share estimations just a few years earlier.

For Microsoft, this downward trend is important in the sense that the once prestigious web browser does not have the same dominating effects that it once did, and that one of Microsoft’s flagship products seems to have been left in the wind.  However, Microsoft seems to have a new gem on its hands; a gem that could help to rebound Internet Explorer’s market-share and ultimately help to put Microsoft in a more powerful position.

While Internet Explorer 9 has yet to be released as a finalized product, the beta of the high-ranking web browser has been moderately successful in raking in over twenty million downloads in the three months that it has been available.

I know what you’re thinking.  Twenty million downloads, while a lot, is nothing in retrospect to the number of Internet users in the wold.  And while this is indeed true, the fact of the matter is that the IE9 beta has received higher levels of attention and downloads than any other Internet Explorer beta in history.  What this means to me is that there are more and more users who have opted to give Microsoft another chance with Internet Explorer 9.

Having said this, Microsoft is in the perfect position to not only keep existing Internet Explorer users from switching over to other alternatives, but may very well be able to win back users that they previously lost to applications such as Firefox, Chromium, Opera, and Safari.  However, this all rides on Microsoft impressing and living up to the expectations of end-users.  So while Microsoft may be able to take advantage of IE9’s increased popularity to grow their user-base, the fact of the matter is that if users become disappointed with the new web browser, they will be less inclined to give future releases of the product a chance down the road.

At the end of the day, Microsoft’s playing their cards right could take Internet Explorer 9 to good places.  While its market-share is relatively low as it stands, I am definitely interested to see how things pan out once IE9 is finalized.  This is because a finalized version of Internet Explorer would be pushed to end-users via Windows Update, and would be the version deployed by network administrators for businesses and organizations.  When all is said and done, it’s going to be interesting to see how IE9 does once it is fully launched, and if the once-popular web browser will be able to return to its dominating position once again.