Mozilla will lose its first major battle in 2011. A rather credible tweet puts the launch date of IE9 RC at January 28, which is before Mozilla will get its final beta out the door.
We have good reason to believe that the tweet and the “planned date” for launch is accurate as it has been confirmed to two other independent sources. Apparently, Microsoft has notified its closest partners, which includes tier-1 PC manufacturers as well as the usual suspects such as AMD and Intel, that the RC will be launched at the end of this month. The final version of IE9 is scheduled for a mid-Q1 launch.
Microsoft recently said that the beta version of IE9 has been downloaded more than 20 million times, which is an impressive result, but not enough to turn the tides in the current browser war. While 20 million downloads should have resulted in a market share of nearly 2%, Microsoft is still below 0.5%, according to net Applications. This indicates that only one in four downloaders keeps actually using IE9 Beta. In comparison, Google’s Chrome now hits 0.35% market share for its developer and beta browser versions – without marketing and within less than 4 weeks. Microsoft needed 14 weeks to hit 0.46% market share for the IE9 Beta.
IE9 RC and final will have to be much more sticky than the beta and Microsoft will have to go the extra mile to make a compelling case for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users to upgrade to IE9, as Windows XP is not supported. Windows XP still holds almost 57% of the market, while Windows 7 is at almost 21% and Vista is down to 12%. According to Net Applications, Windows XP and Windows Vista are currently surrendering more market share than Windows 7 can gain, which leads us to believe that IE9′s potential market share is capped at less than 35% of the entire market. Depending on fast or slow Microsoft will move users from XP to 7, IE9′s market share will be impacted in a positive or negative way.
To increase IE9′s market share, Microsoft will have to make a tough decision either way – either increase the appeal of Windows 7 adoption around the globe or update IE8 to IE9 for XP as well.
On a positive note for Microsoft, IE9 is likely to hit the market earlier than Firefox 4, which is on a slow pace to introduction. Beta 8 was more than 4 weeks late, continuing a history of delays of the Firefox 4 beta phase. Beta 9 is now said to stand at 50 blocking bugs. There will be a Beta 10, which includes another 229 blocking bugs. 181 blocking bugs are currently listed for the final version for Firefox 4, not to forget 76 possible bugs that are currently under review. In total, Mozilla has potentially 536 bugs to fix, not including those that may still come up.
There is no information how many bugs Microsoft has to fix in IE9, but if Mozilla keeps its pace, then we are still 4 to 6 weeks away from the release of Beta 10 and at least two months from the release of the RC. That would put the possible release date of Firefox 4 at the very end of Q1, which would be about 5 months late from the original schedule and a risky proposition for Mozilla’s position in the browser market. Capturing market share from an old rival browser is a lot easier than from a brand new rival browser.
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