Microsoft’s IE9 with Windows 7 gamble is paying off as usage increases

By Tom Warren, on 1st Aug 11 7:03 am with 25 Comments

Microsoft’s big bet on Internet Explorer 9 with Windows 7 appears to be paying off.

The company released Internet Explorer 9 in March to Vista and Windows 7 users. Microsoft excluded Windows XP owners in a bid to convince users to upgrade to the company’s latest and greatest. Windows XP accounts for nearly 50% of all operating system usage share worldwide, making it the most widely used operating system. Microsoft’s competitors still actively support Windows XP with their latest browsers, allowing them to pick up additional usage share.

Despite the risks involved, Microsoft’s gamble appears to be paying off on the Windows 7 side. Internet Explorer 9 has now reached nearly 25% share on Windows 7 in the U.S. during July. IE9 usage on Windows 7 worldwide is now at 18.5% in July too. Both figures are above Google’s Chrome 12 and Mozilla’s Firefox 5. Microsoft’s overall Internet Explorer usage share dropped again in July however. Internet Explorer now holds 52.81% usage share according to statistics from Net Applications.

Microsoft highlighted a drop in Internet Explorer 6 usage on Monday. “In Business, as IE9 moves in, it’s clear IE6 is on its way out,” said Microsoft’s director of Internet Explorer Marketing Roger Capriotti. Internet Explorer 6 has dropped by 12 percentage points during the last year and accounts for 4-5% usage share in business accounts. “With end of life for IE6 and Windows XP rapidly approaching, we expect this drop in share to continue,” said Capriotti. “It’s great to see that the move of businesses off Windows XP and IE6 is helping to drive a worldwide drop in IE6 share,” he added.

Microsoft is currently readying its Internet Explorer 10 browser. The company is expected to unveil a beta version of the browser at its BUILD conference in September.

  • http://twitter.com/mcakins McAkins Online

    All good and dandy Microsoft for the IE9 pickup, but please get your act together and add all the remaining features to IE9 and IE10! Like Spell-check for example!

    • Grannyville7989

      Spellchecker should be a system wide feature in Windows. I also wouldn’t mind if they implement something like Reader and Reading List like Safari’s got. I quite like those features when I’m using my laptop with OS X.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=611639321 Carlos Ribeiro Da Fonseca

      Yup, the spell checker is one of the things that no one gets. It’s not like MS doesn’t already have all the parts it needs to do that…

    • Anonymous

      The only thing that could be the reason is that Microsoft doesn’t want competitors to benefit from their technology. If they would implement it in IE, Google Docs can benefit from it. But there is no real alternative, IMO.

    • phil jay

      like the one in chrome that just highlights every text with red squiglies and does basicly not help just a little bit?

    • Anonymous

      How does it not help? It works exactly like in Word for so many years with suggestions in the context menu and it is very easy to install and switch languages inside every text field.

    • phil jay

      Well for me its probably because it’s never correcting in the language im writing in, and I usually don’t want any correction in the internets, and if I do, I wouldn’t want it to be browser included but rather a nice feature of the web app that I would be using, because that would probably work better and be more specific.

    • phil jay

      Well for me its probably because it’s never correcting in the language im writing in, and I usually don’t want any correction in the internets, and if I do, I wouldn’t want it to be browser included but rather a nice feature of the web app that I would be using, because that would probably work better and be more specific.

    • Grannyville7989

      There’s a problem like that with Firefox on Ubuntu in my university’s Linux lab. No matter what you type, Firefox will highlight it with a red squiggly line. Could be just teething problems though. They just recently moved the machines from Fedora.

    • http://www.facebook.com/naudo Nicholas Audo

      Have you checked the language settings?  Maybe it’s configured for the wrong one?

    • Anonymous

      You can use Speckie http://speckie.com/home/

    • phil jay

      like the one in chrome that just highlights every text with red squiglies and does basicly not help just a little bit?

    • Andrew

      Just download the spellcheck add on.

    • Zrider

      Try Speckie…it works well. I personally use Word for lengthy comments and paste it in. I hate hitting the wrong key or button and losing everything I wrote when the page changes. :-)
      http://www.iegallery.com/us/addons/detail.aspx?id=11171

  • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

    While I use IE9 primarily (I’ve used Firefox and Chrome in the past) it still needs a lot of consumer-friendly functionality.  It’s small things like, when I highlight a url, or even something that is xxxxx.com, and then right-click it, there should be an option to “go to” that URL.  Spell-checking is actually a big one and I really hope IE10 brings a brand new extensions platform.  IE9 is fast, which is great, but when it comes to functionality, Firefox and Chrome take the cake.

    • http://www.facebook.com/bxniels0 Barry Nielsen

      And if you accidently click the ‘X’ on the most popular sites Start tab, which is easy to do, if your aim is off, you shouldn’t have to clear your entire History and start again to bring back the tab you accidently removed by mistake.

    • Guest

      technically you can remove it in registry but its just a pain

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jonathan-Marston/542557737 Jonathan Marston
    • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

      I already use it. It’s not perfect but it works, sometimes. ________________________________

    • Anonymous

      Exactly… It’s those little things that counts… Like when you click on a folder on Favourites-Bar, I’d like to open all the other just by hovering them and not having to press again clicks.

      I was saying that long time ago. Simple functionality. Take those little things from other browsers, so users won’t alienate so much whey they try IE.

      By the way, I gave time to explore IE and just found Spell Checker ( Speckie ) which is at least equal or even better than the competitors ( ’cause it gives you some insignificant  maybe but more options ) and… Mouse Gestures! I couldn’t believe it there is for IE 9! I’m now much closer to make IE 9 default from “main secondary” browser. I hope I’ll do it when IE 10 will come out!

    • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

      I use speckie and while it works in most places, it’s far from ideal. I’ll have to check out mouse gestures though. Another app I use is wizmouse, it isnt an IE add-on but it allows you to scroll whatever window the mouse is hovering over, even with out clicking in to it, like OS X does by default.
      I’m hoping IE 10 will be the version they focus on functionality. They pretty much got performance down in 9.
      Sent from my Windows Phone
      ________________________________

  • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

    While I use IE9 primarily (I’ve used Firefox and Chrome in the past) it still needs a lot of consumer-friendly functionality.  It’s small things like, when I highlight a url, or even something that is xxxxx.com, and then right-click it, there should be an option to “go to” that URL.  Spell-checking is actually a big one and I really hope IE10 brings a brand new extensions platform.  IE9 is fast, which is great, but when it comes to functionality, Firefox and Chrome take the cake.

  • http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98

    I’m glad that people are starting to use IE9. It’s way better than IE8…

  • Frylockns86

    There is no reason IE9 had to work with XP. Sorry, but it’s time to get off that crap and onto something more modern.

  • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

    I was a fervent FF user for a long time but I’ve noticed its performance is starting to drag.  I’ve been using IE9 lately and I’m impressed.  Can’t wait for IE10. :)