Microsoft's IE9 OS Gamble Paying Off? ~ Latest Information For You

Microsoft's Internet Explorer retained its browser dominance in July, followed by Mozilla's Firefox, but both saw a slight decline in the last month while Google's Chrome enjoyed a slight, incremental boost, according to data from Net Applications.

Nonetheless, Microsoft touted the gains the latest version of its browser, IE9, has made in the business sector and on its latest OS, Windows 7.

Overall, Internet Explorer had 52.81 percent of the global browser market last month (down 0.87 percent), followed by Firefox with 21.48 percent (down 0.19 percent), and Chrome at 13.45 percent, up from 13.11 percent last month. Safari also dropped slightly to 7.48 percent, while Opera bit off about 1.73 percent of the browser share.

Broken down by browser version, IE8 was the most popular at 29.3 percent, though that was a drop from June's 30.07 percent. Chrome 12, meanwhile, captured 11.16 percent, up from 7.32 percent in June. Microsoft's push to abolish IE6 appears to be working; IE6 global share was down to 9.24 percent from 10.18 percent the month before.

IE9's worldwide share crept up to 6.77 percent, from 5.63 percent. But Net Applications said that Microsoft's strategy of releasing IE9 only for Vista and Windows 7 appears to have paid off.

"In July on Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 hit 18.5 percent share worldwide and 24.8 percent in the United States. There are indications that this strategy is working. Although Internet Explorer lost usage share on XP, on Windows 7, Microsoft increased global usage share, going from 54.6 percent in June to 54.8 percent in July. And in the U.S., Internet Explorer share on Windows 7 grew 0.6 percent to 68.1 percent," Net Applications said.

In a blog post, Microsoft's Roger Capriotti said the numbers are "a good leading indicator of the value companies are seeing in moving to Internet Explorer 9 with Windows 7."

On all operating systems, IE9 had 11 percent share in the United States, Net Apps found.

In other browser news, a report emerged this weekend that suggested Internet Explorer users are not as smart as their Firefox- and Chrome-using counterparts. Across the board, the average IQ scores presented for users of Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9 were all lower than the IQ scores recorded for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Camino, and Opera users, according to online psychometric testing company AptiQuant.

Source: Click here