IE8 'faces competition from within'

Microsoft regards older versions of its browser as posing the biggest competition to Internet Explorer 8.

Rather than rival browser vendors Mozilla or Opera, Microsoft considers its own products to pose the main "difficulty" when convincing surfers to upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer.

The claims are borne out by statistics from Net Applications which give Internet Explorer 8 a global market share of just over 15 per cent, compared to Firefox 3.5's 8.8 per cent.

The most commonly-used browser worldwide is still Internet Explorer 6, with a 25 per cent share. Internet Explorer 7 is also more popular than IE8, with 21 per cent of the market.

Firefox 3 has a 12.5 per cent share, according to usage statistics from August 2009.

But Amy Barzdukas, general manager for Internet Explorer and Consumer Security at Microsoft, did concede that more could be done to persuade people to stop using the much-maligned Internet Explorer 6.

"We can always do more to make people understand why they should move sooner rather than later," she told Web User.

Customers hold the key
When it comes to developing new features for future versions of Internet Explorer, Microsoft looks to consumer feedback rather than rivals for inspiration, Barzdukas said.

"Rather than looking at the competitors for the features we'd like to see, we look to consumers to tell us what they want.

"When you ask consumers what they're most concerned about, they're far more likely to talk to you about their concerns over identity theft or online security rather than Acid 3 performance or how the HTML5 spec is coming along," Barzdukas said.

Barzdukas also slammed the "PR spin" that other browser vendors engaged in.

"We're on the HTML5 working committee but announcing support for a standard that's not yet written or ratified bears the hallmarks of PR spin," she told Web User.

Barzdukas also questioned the motivation behind Mozilla's recent claim that there had been one billion Firefox downloads.

"When you have people talking about large numbers, you have to ask, what are they trying to say? I was not questioning whether they've had that number of downloads but what does it mean and why are they trumpeting that?" Barzdukas asked.