On May 16, the official wechat of Microsoft edge browser said that Microsoft IE browser will be officially retired on June 16, and its functions will be taken over by edge browser thereafter. Looking back, from the release of Windows 95 in 1995, taking advantage of the historical east wind of the rapid development of the Internet, ie took eight years to occupy 95% of the global browser market in 2003. Such "brilliance" is unmatched by any browser or even any Internet product.
At present, the focus of the Internet has already come to the mobile terminal. App has explosively covered the Internet market, and the value of PC browser has been significantly impacted. But the problem is that the app based on browser is always difficult to meet the long tail needs of users. At this level, PC browser has irreplaceable unique value and still plays an important role as a traffic portal.
Therefore, it can be seen that Microsoft, which "gave up" ie, did not give up the browser business, but let IE's "double" edge take over the baton. However, in the current situation, in the face of strong competitors such as Google and the continuous impact of mobile terminal on PC terminal, the future of edge is bound to be full of difficulties and challenges.
For nearly 30 years, ie has opened the door to the Internet and witnessed the development of the Internet. In this way, it "actively" withdrew from the historical stage. However, no matter how the Internet develops in the future, ie is a strong and indispensable stroke in the history of human Internet.
95% market share glory
At present, ie can't even reach the edge of the market.
According to the data of StatCounter, the top three browser market shares by the end of March this year were Google browser (67.13%), Safari browser (9.75%) and edge browser (8.81%), while IE browser accounted for less than 2%.
But even the remaining 2% is thanks to the sales strategy of "system bundled browser".
[source: StatCounter]
It is hard to imagine that such a browser with a market share of less than 2% once monopolized the global market, which is an insurmountable gap for countless browsers.
In 1990, based on the world's first browser WorldWideWeb, the National Supercomputing application center of the United States developed mosaic, the first browser widely used in history. With the resignation of Marc andreesen, head of mosaic project, and the development of Netscape Navigator browser, the curtain of the human Internet era was officially opened.
[Netscape browser source network]
In that market with few competitors, Netscape browser took only two or three years from its birth to its monopoly. Browser has always been an important entrance to the Internet. At that time, monopolizing the market was basically equivalent to "controlling" the whole Internet. This situation is not good news for Microsoft, which not only makes computer systems but also develops browsers.
Therefore, after the failure of active "strategic cooperation", the first browser war in history began.
In order to effectively compete with Netscape browser, Bill Gates spent $2 billion to quickly launch ie2.0 through various means on the basis of IE 1.0 released in August 1995 0 With the improvement of technology, Bill Gates also decided to open IE for free, aiming at the paid Netscape browser.
[ie1.0 source: Pacific computer network]
The free and open decision showed people the determination of Microsoft and Bill Gates, but in order to win a complete victory, Microsoft hit another heavy blow and launched [windows] in the same year( https://microsoft.pvxt.net/x9Vg1 ) 95 system is deeply bundled with IE for sale. When the browser brought by the computer system became IE and users "had to" use IE, the situation of Microsoft began to become clearer and began to quickly erode the market share of Netscape browser.
At this critical juncture of life and death, Netscape browser, which focuses on the browser function, has problems such as jam and bug due to too many functions, and began to be "despised" by users gradually.
Given a good opportunity, Microsoft took advantage of the hot iron and released ie 4.0, which shocked the market in October 1997. Compared with Netscape, this browser better follows the Internet standard proposed by W3C and can provide some functions such as MP3 playback. Since then, on the basis of Microsoft's huge financial resources, bundled marketing and continuous research and development, IE browser has been irresistible all the way and won more than 80% of the market share.
Even though Netscape sued Microsoft in the name of monopoly and won the lawsuit in 1998, it could not resist Microsoft's offensive and was acquired by AOL for $4.2 billion. So far, the first browser war in the Internet era ended with the victory of Microsoft.
Monopoly replaces monopoly, and the old and new forces will always exchange. In the battlefield of the Internet, a little slack may determine the final success or failure.
However, after the release of IE6, known as "the eighth worst technology product in history" 0, and after the highlight with 96% market share in 2003, the proud Microsoft carelessly removed its armor. Even, I once dissolved my browser team, resulting in ie not being updated in five years after 2001.
As mentioned above, the competition in the Internet era is always in constant iteration. Microsoft, which has stopped its browser for five years, not only foreshadowed the decline of IE in the future, but also moved room for growth for other competitors.
All Heroes rise together to push through the old and bring forth the new
In the embryonic stage of the Internet, the browser is the most important tool for computers to connect to the Internet. It not only serves as the main entrance of hardware to the Internet and links various data information, but also carries the relationship between people and the Internet for the direct interaction between countless users and the Internet.
Therefore, under the wheel of history, the browser market is always surging and never calm.
In 1998, Netscape, which lost in the first browser war, disclosed its browser source code and renamed it Mozilla. All the programs were rewritten and the first version was released in 2002. In 2004, Firefox (Firefox) browser based on Mozilla source code appeared on the stage.
With its small size, efficiency, simplicity, security, open source code and support for extension and customization, more and more people begin to choose Firefox. Not only did Forbes call Firefox the "best browser of 2004", but the magazine PC world also listed Firefox as the "top 100 products of 2005".
[source: Firefox official microblog]
Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers. Under the "great" situation, Firefox launched a strong attack on IE, and the prelude to the second browser war was officially opened.
In the face of sudden rivals, Microsoft smelled danger. On February 15, 2005, Bill Gates advanced the release date of IE 7.0 originally scheduled to cooperate with Longhorn windows, and directly indicated that the reason was that IE's market share was gradually eroded by Firefox.
According to statistics, by 2006, the market share of IE had dropped from the highest point of 96% to 85.62%, while the market share of Firefox increased rapidly to 11.23%.
The skinny camel is bigger than the horse. Under the two advantages of IE's huge user base and web page standard, Firefox has not subverted ie like IE replacing Netscape, and its market share has been hovering between 15% and 20%. Later, Bill Gates said: "we will launch updated browsers frequently as soon as possible, so as not to dream too much at night and lose more market share by other competitors."
It's just, one step wrong, one step wrong. For Microsoft, the players in the market are not just Firefox, and the second browser war is much more complicated than expected.
Before ie was completely relieved, including Firefox, with the rapid development of the global Internet era, many excellent browser players have appeared in the market.
For example, opera in Norway, which was born based on Presto engine, has become famous on mobile devices such as smartphones. Another example is to put the main position on Maxthon in China. According to Baidu's statistics, 15% of Baidu users were using this browser at that time. Another example is accompanied by Apple The rise of safari has led the global mobile browser market.
With the rise of all heroes, Microsoft really felt the crisis and began to focus on improving IE browser. But the reality is that in the face of each erosion with unique advantages, Microsoft can only watch its market share be taken away bit by bit.
Of course, on the PC side, it is not the players such as Firefox and opera who really pull ie down the throne, but the emergence of Google Chrome.
In 2008, Google officially released its first chrome beta and placed a download link on its official website. With the breadth involving more than 100 countries around the world, many users around the world have downloaded Chrome with their own brand influence.
[source: Chrome browser]
Soon users found that chrome was not only safe and fast, but also supported a variety of new web features and standards, and had a streamlined appearance. More importantly, chrome is completely open source. For its browser kernel chromium, everyone can obtain and make all the source code required by a browser for free. For example, domestic multi-core browsers such as 360, QQ, Sogou and UC are using chromium.
Compared with chrome, ie is completely on the opposite side. It not only has security risks and poor compatibility, but also has slow card, few functions and poor appearance. There are even a large number of jokes about IE on the Internet
In such a sharp gap, in 2012, Google's Chrome market share surpassed ie for the first time. Ie11, launched by Microsoft in 2013, has also become the last version of IE. By 2015, ie's market share had fallen below 20%, while chrome ranked first, with a market share of 52.82%.
The strong rise of Google Chrome officially declared the end of the second browser war and the end of the era of IE.
Who took the baton
One view is that for free tool products, users often make choices according to the use experience.
Under the subversion of Google Chrome, ie's defeat has been irreparable, and Microsoft finally decided to give up this product that has been fighting with its growth for many years.
In 2020, Microsoft ended its support for Internet Explorer 11 for Microsoft teams web applications and plans to cut off its access to Microsoft 365 services later this year. In 2021, the "planned" death time of ie was officially announced.
But it is certain that although the browser itself does not have much commercial value, it is the most basic Internet portal, which can guide traffic to various ports. Moreover, most apps themselves are also developed based on the browser kernel. Therefore, although giving up IE, Microsoft did not give up "browser".
After abandoning ie, Microsoft made a new start and developed its new generation of browser edge. At first, edge did not completely get rid of the shadow of IE, and the built-in edgehtml engine developed by Microsoft still has no advantages over chrome on the whole.
In the face of no beautiful mood in the market, Microsoft finally chose to "be soft", abandoned its edgehtml kernel and switched to chrome, which killed ie. In August 2020, Microsoft officially launched the stable version of edge browser equipped with chromium core, referred to as C version edge.
[source: edge browser]
After the C version of edge was born, it has greatly surpassed ie 11 both in performance and function, which directly determines the outcome of ie being completely abandoned.
For Microsoft, there are different voices on the market whether the edge based on chrome can stir up the beam and even reproduce the glory of IE that year. Some people are optimistic, while others are bearish.
Optimistic people believe that windows 10 users increasingly recognize the edge browser, which has not only won a good user reputation, but also has a growing share.
According to the latest data of StatCounter, the market share of Microsoft edge browser exceeded 10% in April 2022. Although there is still a big gap compared with Google Chrome's 66.64% share, it can naturally regain more market share with Microsoft's continuous updating.
Bearish people believe that edge is based on the chromium kernel and it is impossible to surpass chrome.
One side has accumulated more and more advantages. On the other hand, with the advent of the mobile Internet era, the competition of browsers has shifted from computer desktop to mobile desktop, and the decline of PC browser has been irreparable. On the mobile side, Google and apple have occupied an absolute dominant position. The failure of Windows Phone means that Microsoft's way into this market is full of challenges, so even if edge continues to grow, it may struggle in the market.
In a word, as a very important tool in the Internet era, the smoke of gunpowder on the battlefield will continue forever. Imperfect technologies will always be innovated and eliminated. Some people will fall in the war, but there will always be new overlords. Microsoft is no exception, and Google is no exception.