...Bing has 2.8% market share and Edge 4.9%. This rises to 7.2% and 11% respectively when looking just at desktop browsing (same statcounter link you posted).
For two products that have been aggressively pushed for years. I think you'll have to concede that, if not dead ducks, they are decidedly unhealthy.
Nothing bad about having plurality of search results and the Chromium Edge isn't a bad browser (had they just done that in the first place it may have gained more traction). I'm just fed up of constantly having them dangled in front of me when I've made other choices.
Microsoft need to accept that they threw away their dominance in the browser market and if they haven't got it back by now they probably never will, whilst Google's dominance in search is a battle won a long time ago.
Windows 9 is now Windows 10
TBH I think they got their dominance taken away, to a large degree. They were subject to some pretty stringent interventions around bundling IE with Windows, which tbh was a good thing as IE was crippling the web, but Apple and Google haven't seen similar interventions even as they arguably do far more predatory things. Browsers are just accepted now as core operating system components.
Thats true, but MS still made some pretty bad decisions which would only damage their market share.
They left XP users stranded on IE8 5 years before it reached end of life and whilst it still had a big chunk of market share even though IE9/10/11 were all released within its lifetime. If you were running XP devices in its twilight years, switching to a non-Microsoft browser became essential. That's actually what got me into desktop browsing with Chrome; it went onto my XP devices to keep them usable then it really became useful that the browsing history and bookmarks synced with my phone. At that point it became inevitable that in the end I would ditch IE altogether.
When Windows 10 was released, they should have integrated legacy IE functionality into Edge then, as it was they kept IE11 on as a separate browser and took years to come up with an IE mode for Edge. Using IE11 was still supported (albeit increasingly begrudgingly) until 2022! Many corporates who needed IE for specific sites just ran with keeping IE11 as the primary browser for everything initially and when it became too old the obvious replacement for mainstream browsing would be a browser with significant market share, not Edge. Had Edge been sufficiently developed to have support for IE-dependant legacy sites in 2015 rather than years later things could have been different.
And whilst not disagreeing about the need to move on from IE as it was, they ignored the value in the brand name which, however hated it was in some circles was still viewed as a go-to mainstream web browser (it was still #1 until 2012 and #2 until 2014). Had they done the same dance technically but kept the name less damage to market share could have been done.
Second in each category and gaining significantly. Not dead ducks.cwathen wrote: ↑Mon 01 May, 2023 08.56 ...Bing has 2.8% market share and Edge 4.9%. This rises to 7.2% and 11% respectively when looking just at desktop browsing (same statcounter link you posted).
For two products that have been aggressively pushed for years. I think you'll have to concede that, if not dead ducks, they are decidedly unhealthy.
Nothing bad about having plurality of search results and the Chromium Edge isn't a bad browser (had they just done that in the first place it may have gained more traction). I'm just fed up of constantly having them dangled in front of me when I've made other choices.
Microsoft need to accept that they threw away their dominance in the browser market and if they haven't got it back by now they probably never will, whilst Google's dominance in search is a battle won a long time ago.
Not entirely sure what argument you're trying to have Will. Both are indeed second - a cavernously distant second - but that second position is with the world's largest software company spending years pushing them and still they're an order of magnitude away from even significance, let alone dominance in their spaces. Re. 'gaining significantly', they are going up M-O-M at the moment but then I'm pretty sure older stats at one point showed both as having higher usage than they do today. I don't think Bing has even peaked at the level that previous generations of Microsoft search engines did, despite having far more resources thrown at it than it's predecessors.
Google became the top search engine more than 20 years ago because it was just plain better than the others. And that's OG early 2000's Google before it became a frightening telemetry-gathering behemoth. What came later was all built off being the best search engine first. How will anything conquer that now? Google's browser also became the top browser over the rise of Android combined with Microsoft dropping the ball over availability of later versions of IE followed by badly managing it's replacement which caused a lot of desktop migration to Chrome. Microsoft have made a valiant attempt at trying to take Google on in the mobile and tablet space but it's failed. How do they now challenge the dominance of Chrome when they only have a desktop browser (itself a Chromium browser anyway) as a credible product?
If you can envisage a scenario where Bing/Edge manage to grow, not even to dominance, but to more than single percentage points of overall usage I'd be very happy to hear it. Perhaps we revisit this thread in a year?
What they could do is rename "Microsoft Bing" to "Windows Live Search". I think that would be extremely successful.
I went on a nostalgia tour of screenshots by typing the latter into Google Image Search, and completely forgot about the original bing logo, which Shatliff must have had a hand in:
Just pointing out that they're not 'dead ducks'.cwathen wrote: ↑Mon 01 May, 2023 21.18Not entirely sure what argument you're trying to have Will. Both are indeed second - a cavernously distant second - but that second position is with the world's largest software company spending years pushing them and still they're an order of magnitude away from even significance, let alone dominance in their spaces. Re. 'gaining significantly', they are going up M-O-M at the moment but then I'm pretty sure older stats at one point showed both as having higher usage than they do today. I don't think Bing has even peaked at the level that previous generations of Microsoft search engines did, despite having far more resources thrown at it than it's predecessors.
Google became the top search engine more than 20 years ago because it was just plain better than the others. And that's OG early 2000's Google before it became a frightening telemetry-gathering behemoth. What came later was all built off being the best search engine first. How will anything conquer that now? Google's browser also became the top browser over the rise of Android combined with Microsoft dropping the ball over availability of later versions of IE followed by badly managing it's replacement which caused a lot of desktop migration to Chrome. Microsoft have made a valiant attempt at trying to take Google on in the mobile and tablet space but it's failed. How do they now challenge the dominance of Chrome when they only have a desktop browser (itself a Chromium browser anyway) as a credible product?
If you can envisage a scenario where Bing/Edge manage to grow, not even to dominance, but to more than single percentage points of overall usage I'd be very happy to hear it. Perhaps we revisit this thread in a year?
Brings back memories of this: https://www.underconsideration.com/bran ... horizo.php
Sadly only available in rubbish archived form due to the blog being paywalled now.
Sadly only available in rubbish archived form due to the blog being paywalled now.
