Microsoft Has 10 Grand For You if You're Willing to Use Internet Explorer

by Sam Dean - Jun. 19, 2009Comments (6)

We've written extensively about the declining market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, which is being challenged from every angle by open source browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is already the number one browser in Europe, is vastly more extensible than Internet Explorer, and is out in an excellent new Release Candidate version 3.5.  The European Commission is also pressuring Microsoft on its distribution practices for its browser.

How desperate is Microsoft to woo users to its Internet Explorer version 8 browser? Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker points out in a blog post that Microsoft is now offering $10,000 in prize money "buried somewhere on the Internet" which you can only find if you use Internet Explorer. Come on Microsoft, Internet Explorer needs a lot more than this marketing campaign to shore up its prospects.

In her blog post, Baker equates Microsoft's latest Internet Explorer marketing campaign with the campaigns from Microsoft and Netscape in the 1990s to get web sites to use features proprietary to their browsers. That, in addition to distributing Internet Explorer on every Windows desktop, is how Microsoft's browser became so dominant.

I have to agree with Baker that Microsoft's marketing campaign is "not intended to represent any grand vision of the Internet." She writes:

 

"It reflects a mindset that is still at odds with the idea of making one Internet, accessible to all, open to all, cross-platform, cross-product and unified in its nature."

 

Until Microsoft corrects that mindset, and fosters the kind of free, open extensibility for its browser that Firefox has, it remains doomed to watch Internet Explorer continue to lose market share.


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6 Comments
 

This is so sad, M$ having to offer money... is begging next?


0 Votes

Don't count these guys out yet and don't be fooled by the "concessions" they've made in the EU (Replacing a pre-loaded app with an opt-in feature is not going to make a major dent in their installed-base). Yes, it is a crap browser and these sort of shenanigans are just what you'd expect from Redmond, but they still have the lion's share of the market and enough financial muscle to build on that. I think this $10k "promotion" is just some stupid marketing gimmick and not the cornerstone of Balmer's strategy. I think Windows 7 is going to be the vehicle they use to (underhandedly) force the browser & search engine down user's throats. And if history is a good indicator of things to come, they have a good shot at some level of success.


0 Votes

Microsoft is the Fox News of Software...


0 Votes

@Giu, I could not agree with you more. There is no such thing as bad publicity and all this talk will only help M$. They ARE going to force the browser down people's throats, and guess what will be the home page on those browsers pretty soon? Bing bing bing!!! You are right!


0 Votes

Numbers don't lie. Here's Microsoft Internet Explorer Market Share for the last 3 years according to an article in the SJ Mercury News (http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12625109?nclick_check=1)


May 2007: 78.9%


May 2008: 73.8%


May 2009: 65.5%


It's quite telling...don't you think??


0 Votes

Would this technically be gambling, since you need to pay your $200 for a chance to win $10,000?


As gambling is not legal in most states, including the one where they are headquartered, could this be an issue.


0 Votes
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