時尚雙語:火狐蠶食IE市場份額 IE瀏覽器註定消亡？
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.
新聞評論：我們可以停止爭論桌面瀏覽器市場份額話題了嗎？ 微軟公司的無線瀏覽器問題更大。
每隔幾天，就有人寫寫些東西評論微軟IE瀏覽器市場份額下滑。"天哪！《網絡程序》十二月的數據顯示IE的市場份額降到70%以下，這可不是小事啦。"
是絕密消息還是空虛來風？
這些數據說起來都是扯談，因爲他們根本無法知曉市場整體的大小。瀏覽器市場並非一成不變。分析家們都是根據發貨量之類的數據計算市場份額。10家廠商在Y時間段類總髮貨量爲X；根據每個廠商具體發貨數量計算其市場份額。
這種算法在網頁瀏覽器這行不管用，因爲使用量纔是真正的衡量尺度，就是誰在用什麼。而且人們傾向於使用一種以上瀏覽器。哪怕《網絡程序》採用使用量計算份額，也無法反映使用一種以上瀏覽器人羣的數量。就是說，微軟的份額降到70%一下並不能說明什麼，這條新聞最多表明人們繼續使用IE和其他瀏覽器。《網絡程序》的數據中有三件事情值得注意。
火狐並沒從IE瀏覽器手中搶得很大份額。
蘋果公司的Safari穩步增長，谷歌公司的Chrome份額激增。
從IE6升級到IE7的熱潮已經基本結束。
根據《網絡程序》，IE瀏覽器的使用量（或市場份額，如果你非要用這個詞）在十一月降至69.77%。其十月數值爲68.15%，呈持續下降趨勢。不過從整體來看，IE去年還是保持在70%以上。也就是說，從2008年一月的75.47%開始，IE瀏覽器明顯呈逐月下降的趨勢。
火狐則不斷奪取份額，從一月的16.89%到7月的19.22%到12月的超過21%。但比起Chrome和Safari，其增長率就相形見絀了。谷歌公司的瀏覽器從8月公佈時0佔有率開始到12月已經獲得1.04%市場份額。Safari從一月的5.82%增長到8月的6.37%然後急升至十二月的7.93%。
一月到十二月，瀏覽器市場份額/使用量份額變化情況：
IE，下降7.32%
火狐，增長4.36%
Safari，增長2.11%
Chrome，增長1.04%
所有瀏覽器市場份額/使用量份額增長率總和爲7.53%。從《網絡程序》這一數據可以看出，Chrome，火狐和Safari得到了IE瀏覽器失去的市場份額。但事實遠非數據顯示的這麼簡單。因爲這些數據不可能表現整體狀況，而且這些廣爲流傳的數據也無法反映瀏覽器市場羣雄割據的混戰局勢。《網絡程序》跟蹤觀察了40 種瀏覽器。十二月時，IE8（我估計當時版本爲Beta 2）比Chrome 1.0佔有更多的市場份額：82%到55%。這說明將近有一半的Chrome用戶使用的是Beta版本。就這一年，IE8的市場份額爲23%,同比 Chrome1.0只有0.03%。
從IE6升級專用IE7的客戶並沒有預想的那麼多。我認爲這主要緣於微軟瀏覽器易用性問題。該年IE7的市場份額爲46.06%，IE6爲26.2%。
蘋果公司的瀏覽器開始階段增長勢頭不錯，但最終結果平平。我本以爲它會獲得更好的成績。個人估計是兩個原因：Safari在Windows操作系統上比人們預期的使用量更多，而在蘋果系統上比預期的要少（在蘋果系統上，火狐不斷侵蝕Safari的份額）。蘋果公司得要小心谷歌公司發行蘋果系統版本的Chrome瀏覽器。 Chrome將是2009年值得關注的瀏覽器。我的同事，負責“谷歌觀察“欄目的Clint Boulton敏銳的觀察到，谷歌正通過其網頁服務推廣Chrome瀏覽器。
話說至此，該數據一直忽略了一個重要的方面：移動平臺。作爲移動設備瀏覽器，IE的表現慘不忍睹。我不會向任何人推薦。十一月份Gizmodo網站移動瀏覽器評測完美解釋了IE的墮落：
暈死 微軟老大，你在開玩笑吧。
哈哈哈哈哈哈哈。
絕不誇張的說這是史上最糟糕的智能手機瀏覽器。它無法顯示一個由ASCII碼組成的紙袋圖形。每個測試網頁它都完全顯示得一塌糊塗，除了維基百科，這是唯一個網站還有一小部分能看清的。如果奇蹟般的碰上一個它能正常顯示的網頁，你就真是撞大運了。
評級：F減
移動通訊是未來重要的平臺，微軟瀏覽器還未取在其上取得壓倒性的優勢。蘋果和谷歌在這一平臺有兩個基於WebKit開源架構的移動瀏覽器而微軟幾乎一無所有。微軟的桌面操作系統份額下降值得關注但並非事關緊要。
關鍵是. IE瀏覽器已經失去了上個世紀在計算機操作系統上的統治地位。更重要的是，IE沒有在這個世紀最重要的移動平臺上取得優勢。我們不再聊IE低於70%的份額，多談談微軟的移動平臺危機如何？ Mozilla公司幾個月後就將發行移動版本的火狐。移動版的Chrome和Safari已經在興風作浪。
移動瀏覽器份額增加也會促進其桌面版本的使用量。除非微軟在移動平臺上作出引人矚目的改進，否則移動版的IE消失將成定局。到時候，我們探討IE桌面瀏覽器份額下降就比較有意義了。
