时尚双语:火狐蚕食IE市场份额 IE浏览器注定消亡？

News Commentary. Can we stop all the desktop browser market share talk? Microsoft's Mobile browsing problems are much bigger.

Every few days, somebody writes something about Internet Explorer's declining marketshare. "OMG. Net Applications December data shows IE market share below 70 percent." Big hairy deal.

arrow.gifGOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

These numbers are somewhat meaningless, anyway, because they do the impossible: Add up to 100 percent. Browsers aren't a finite market. Analysts can calculate share based on, say, shipments of something. Ten manufacturers ship X number of widgets during Y time period; market share can be calculated based on how many widgets each manufacturer shipped.

The math doesn't apply to Web browsers, because the real measurement is usage. Who is using what, and people tend to use more than one browser. At best, Net Apps is measuring usage share, which doesn't reflect how many people are using more than one browser. That said, Microsoft's drop below 70 percent is worth noting, but the news is more that people continue to use IE and something else. Three things stand out from Net Apps data:

* Firefox isn't appreciably gaining as much share against Internet Explorer

* Apple's Safari is making modest gains, while Google Chrome ekes upwards

* The rush to convert from Internet Explorer 6 to IE 7 is largely over

According to Net Apps, Internet Explorer usage (market share, if you must insist) dropped to 69.77 percent in November. IE's decline continued in December to 68.15 percent. Maybe, but for the year, IE is still well above 70 percent. That said, Internet Explorer's monthly downward trend is clear—from 75.47 percent in January 2008.

Firefox continues to gain—from 16.98 percent share in January to 19.22 percent share in July to over 21 percent in December. But the bigger market share movers were Chrome and Safari. Google's browser went from 0 percent share in August to 1.04 percent share in December. Safari rose from 5.82 percent share in January to 7.93 percent share in December—that's up from 6.37 percent in August.

From January to December, browser market share/usage share changed:

* IE, down 7.32 percent

* Firefox, up 4.36 percent

* Safari, up 2.11 percent

* Chrome, up 1.04 percent

Add up the gainers and they total 7.53 percent market/usage share. Based on Net App numbers then, Chrome, Firefox and Safari gained the share lost by Internet Explorer. But the story isn't so simple as the data tells, because these numbers shouldn't total 100 percent and the browser market is considerably more fragmented than what these topline numbers indicate. Net Apps tracks about 40 different browsers. In December, Internet Explorer 8 (Beta 2, I presume) had greater market share than Chrome 1.0: 82 percent to 55 percent. That means that nearly half of all Chrome users used a beta version of the Google browser. For the year, IE 8 share was 23 percent compared to .03 percent for Chrome 1.0. browsers1208.jpgIE 7 still isn't gaining the way one would expect against IE 6, which I see as being a big part of Microsoft's browser usage problem. For the year, IE 7 share was 46.06 percent compared to 26.2 percent for IE 6.

Apple's share gains, while initially impressive, surprisingly aren't. Given Mac's market share gains, I would expect the browser numbers to be higher. I suspect two trends: Better Safari adoption than most people might expect on Windows and much less than expected on the Mac (where Firefox steals usage from Safari). Apple should worry about Google getting out a Chrome version for the Mac. Chrome will be the browser to watch in 2009. As my Google Watch colleague Clint Boulton so astutely observes, Google is using its Web services to push Chrome adoption.

All this said, something hugely important isn't reflected in the data: Mobile. Internet Explorer is a simply godawful mobile browser. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. November's Gizmodo mobile browser shoot-out was a hoot in explaining IE's failing grade:

Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-

The future platform that matters, the one where Microsoft doesn't have dominant browser share, is mobile. There, Apple and Google have two excellent WebKit-based mobile browsers. Microsoft has got less than nothing. Microsoft's desktop declines are interesting but not hugely significant.

Big deal. IE is losing ground on last century's dominant computing platform. What matters more is where IE isn't—and that's this century's dominant platform: Mobile. How about we dispense with this IE less-than-70-percent chatter and talk more about Microsoft's mobile crisis. Mozilla is months away from releasing mobile Firefox. Mobile Chrome and Safari already are rainmakers.

Increased adoption of mobile browsers should drive usage of their desktop counterparts, too. Unless Microsoft does something dramatic on mobiles, IE's mobile extinction is almost inevitable. Then it will be time to really talk about IE's desktop browser share declines.

新闻评论：我们可以停止争论桌面浏览器市场份额话题了吗？ 微软公司的无线浏览器问题更大。

每隔几天，就有人写写些东西评论微软IE浏览器市场份额下滑。"天哪！《网络程序》十二月的数据显示IE的市场份额降到70%以下，这可不是小事啦。"

是绝密消息还是空虚来风？

这些数据说起来都是扯谈，因为他们根本无法知晓市场整体的大小。浏览器市场并非一成不变。分析家们都是根据发货量之类的数据计算市场份额。10家厂商在Y时间段类总发货量为X；根据每个厂商具体发货数量计算其市场份额。

这种算法在网页浏览器这行不管用，因为使用量才是真正的衡量尺度，就是谁在用什么。而且人们倾向于使用一种以上浏览器。哪怕《网络程序》采用使用量计算份额，也无法反映使用一种以上浏览器人群的数量。就是说，微软的份额降到70%一下并不能说明什么，这条新闻最多表明人们继续使用IE和其他浏览器。《网络程序》的数据中有三件事情值得注意。

火狐并没从IE浏览器手中抢得很大份额。
苹果公司的Safari稳步增长，谷歌公司的Chrome份额激增。
从IE6升级到IE7的热潮已经基本结束。

根据《网络程序》，IE浏览器的使用量（或市场份额，如果你非要用这个词）在十一月降至69.77%。其十月数值为68.15%，呈持续下降趋势。不过从整体来看，IE去年还是保持在70%以上。也就是说，从2008年一月的75.47%开始，IE浏览器明显呈逐月下降的趋势。

火狐则不断夺取份额，从一月的16.89%到7月的19.22%到12月的超过21%。但比起Chrome和Safari，其增长率就相形见绌了。谷歌公司的浏览器从8月公布时0占有率开始到12月已经获得1.04%市场份额。Safari从一月的5.82%增长到8月的6.37%然后急升至十二月的7.93%。

一月到十二月，浏览器市场份额/使用量份额变化情况：
IE，下降7.32%
火狐，增长4.36%
Safari，增长2.11%
Chrome，增长1.04%

所有浏览器市场份额/使用量份额增长率总和为7.53%。从《网络程序》这一数据可以看出，Chrome，火狐和Safari得到了IE浏览器失去的市场份额。但事实远非数据显示的这么简单。因为这些数据不可能表现整体状况，而且这些广为流传的数据也无法反映浏览器市场群雄割据的混战局势。《网络程序》跟踪观察了40 种浏览器。十二月时，IE8（我估计当时版本为Beta 2）比Chrome 1.0占有更多的市场份额：82%到55%。这说明将近有一半的Chrome用户使用的是Beta版本。就这一年，IE8的市场份额为23%,同比 Chrome1.0只有0.03%。

从IE6升级专用IE7的客户并没有预想的那么多。我认为这主要缘于微软浏览器易用性问题。该年IE7的市场份额为46.06%，IE6为26.2%。

苹果公司的浏览器开始阶段增长势头不错，但最终结果平平。我本以为它会获得更好的成绩。个人估计是两个原因：Safari在Windows操作系统上比人们预期的使用量更多，而在苹果系统上比预期的要少（在苹果系统上，火狐不断侵蚀Safari的份额）。苹果公司得要小心谷歌公司发行苹果系统版本的Chrome浏览器。 Chrome将是2009年值得关注的浏览器。我的同事，负责“谷歌观察“栏目的Clint Boulton敏锐的观察到，谷歌正通过其网页服务推广Chrome浏览器。

话说至此，该数据一直忽略了一个重要的方面：移动平台。作为移动设备浏览器，IE的表现惨不忍睹。我不会向任何人推荐。十一月份Gizmodo网站移动浏览器评测完美解释了IE的堕落：

晕死 微软老大，你在开玩笑吧。
哈哈哈哈哈哈哈。

绝不夸张的说这是史上最糟糕的智能手机浏览器。它无法显示一个由ASCII码组成的纸袋图形。每个测试网页它都完全显示得一塌糊涂，除了维基百科，这是唯一个网站还有一小部分能看清的。如果奇迹般的碰上一个它能正常显示的网页，你就真是撞大运了。

评级：F减

移动通讯是未来重要的平台，微软浏览器还未取在其上取得压倒性的优势。苹果和谷歌在这一平台有两个基于WebKit开源架构的移动浏览器而微软几乎一无所有。微软的桌面操作系统份额下降值得关注但并非事关紧要。

关键是. IE浏览器已经失去了上个世纪在计算机操作系统上的统治地位。更重要的是，IE没有在这个世纪最重要的移动平台上取得优势。我们不再聊IE低于70%的份额，多谈谈微软的移动平台危机如何？ Mozilla公司几个月后就将发行移动版本的火狐。移动版的Chrome和Safari已经在兴风作浪。

移动浏览器份额增加也会促进其桌面版本的使用量。除非微软在移动平台上作出引人瞩目的改进，否则移动版的IE消失将成定局。到时候，我们探讨IE桌面浏览器份额下降就比较有意义了。