Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Unbundled and Losing Market Share in EU
- Sweden
- 05/18/2010
- Roschier, Attorneys Ltd. - Sweden
Many observers have questioned whether the EU Commission truly can regulate Microsoft’s behavior in a manner that actually would impact the company’s market share. The latest browser statistics following several years of Commission action targeting Microsoft support the view that this question can be answered affirmatively.
First, there was the decision by the EU Court of First Instance in 2007 (T-201/04) reaffirming the fines imposed on Microsoft by the EU Commission for its breaches of EU competition law through its activities involving server and media player products. The decision, which Microsoft chose not to appeal, was subject to extensive enforcement efforts – as well as disputes between the EU Commission and Microsoft regarding the same.
Later in January 2008, the EU Commission commenced investigations into Microsoft’s conduct involving its highly successful Internet browser, namely Microsoft Internet Explorer – which has traditionally been bundled with the more comprehensive Microsoft Windows operating system products. Noticeably concerned about its earlier failures, Microsoft agreed, after much wrangling, to perform a so-called “browser ballot” in the EU: a selection of browsers would be shown to end-users, allowing them then to choose the default one. Initially, Microsoft wanted to perform the ballot in alphabetical order, as that could have helped steer the end-user decisions towards its Internet Explorer. However, the EU Commission compelled the company to perform the ballot in random order.
The ballot was run on 1 March 2010, as any users of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system products will have noticed. The options available to the end-users were the following (in random order): Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, the open sourced Mozilla Firefox, the Norwegian Opera and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. End-users using operating systems without bundled Microsoft Internet Explorer were obviously spared from the ballot. In addition to offering choice of default browser for the end users, the OEMs shipping Microsoft’s Windows in their products will in the future have the right to uninstall Internet Explorer and replace it with another default browser, should they so wish.
The first global browser statistics from the post-ballot era are now available and indicate that, for the first time since unseating Netscape Navigator (currently Mozilla Firefox), the market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer has dropped to below 60%, as determined based on page hits by accessing browsers. Interestingly, it is not the open sourced Mozilla Firefox that seems to be taking market share from Internet Explorer, but Google’s Chrome instead.
To conclude, the post-ballot statistics prove that the remedies imposed by the EU Commission can bite – even at companies like Microsoft and their market share. Nevertheless, skeptics may perhaps argue that the growth of Google’s Chrome would ultimately only reflect the increasing popularity of mobile handsets based on Google’s Android software platform – and not the weakness of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in the PC product segment.
