Internet Explorer’s legacy should be as a cautionary tale and blueprint

Browser’s legal travails nearly broke Microsoft but ultimately may have been good for it and its emerging rivalsInternet Explorer shouldn’t become another mostly-forgotten bit of internet history. Its Ozymandias product arc is an industry cautionary tale and a blueprint for regulatory action. Photograph: APThe web browser Internet Explorer met a quiet end last week, removed from life support by Microsoft. Its mothballing was another end-of-an-era moment.

Chrome’s figures look impressive, but only until you look at the historical figures for Internet Explorer. At one point between 2002 and 2003, IE was the browser more than 90 per cent of us used. Internet ExplorerUntil its retirement last week, it had also reigned for longer than any other browser, holding the dominant share of the market for an incredible 14 years, from the start of 1999 until the end of 2012.

But that was where much changed – I’d argue for better, not for worse, for all of us, and for the tech industry. In a nutshell, the Microsoft antitrust suit revolved around the issue of whether Microsoft was acting as a bullying monopolist in “bundling” Internet Explorer with its PC operating system, Windows, which controlled a breathtaking 97 per cent of all computing devices in 2000.Netscape was the browser nearly everyone used up until then.

Immediately after the Microsoft decision, IE competitors popped up, including Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. By 2009, Firefox had a third of the market with Chrome emerging. By 2012, Chrome overtook IE and Firefox to become dominant, but never to IE’s extent Ironically, Google is in the sights of many antitrust proponents now, for some of the same reasons – the multitude of free products that tie users to its lucrative data-gathering, advertising-driven ecosystem.

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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