This morning, Information Week ran a story about a drop in the number of computers using the newest version of Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer 8. Quoting the article (emphasis mine):
Note that over the first 10 - 15 hours, there is steady growth from a starting point of 1.30 %, but then it makes a dip, bottoming out at 1.56 % in the morning. Growth kicks back in during the late afternoon on Friday and then shows a slight growing trend over the course of the weekend. Then as Sunday comes to an end and the wee hours of the morning sets in, usage tanks. But then again it kicks in during the late afternoon and early evening on Monday.
So what do I make of this? I don't agree with the article's speculation that people were dumping IE 8 and downgrading back to version 7. My guess is that the bulk of the IE 8 upgrades and subsequent usage is taking place at homes within the U.S. Business computing environments are probably holding off on upgrading.
In other words, the dips aren't caused by downgrades. It's simply early adopters going to bed or going to work, where they use a browser other than IE 8.
As of 8:00 am Monday, IE8 -- released Thursday -- held 1.86% of the browser market, down from a high of 2.59% on Sunday, according to market watcher Net Applications. The most likely reason for the decline is that early adopters of IE8 are switching back to the more familiar, and --at this point -- reliable Explorer 7 browser.
This seemed like an odd conclusion, so I took a look at the Market Share website to see if I could examine the figures myself. Sure enough, there was a drop, however the dip doesn't tell the whole story. Let's take a look at a graph of market share since Internet Explorer went live at noon EDT on Thursday:Note that over the first 10 - 15 hours, there is steady growth from a starting point of 1.30 %, but then it makes a dip, bottoming out at 1.56 % in the morning. Growth kicks back in during the late afternoon on Friday and then shows a slight growing trend over the course of the weekend. Then as Sunday comes to an end and the wee hours of the morning sets in, usage tanks. But then again it kicks in during the late afternoon and early evening on Monday.
So what do I make of this? I don't agree with the article's speculation that people were dumping IE 8 and downgrading back to version 7. My guess is that the bulk of the IE 8 upgrades and subsequent usage is taking place at homes within the U.S. Business computing environments are probably holding off on upgrading.
In other words, the dips aren't caused by downgrades. It's simply early adopters going to bed or going to work, where they use a browser other than IE 8.
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