August 11th, 2008
Netscape keeps users; Vista struggles to grab new ones
Surprise, surprise. In the browser game, Firefox’s market share is up a couple of percentage points while Internet Explorer’s share is actually down some 7 percent or so. But here’s something that caught our eye: Netscape - the no-longer-supported browser that probably has those die-hard AOL users to thank - is actually up one percent or so over last year, according to a report issued by Janco Associates.
Also, the same report notes that Google Desktop seems to be gaining in popularity and now has just over 4 percent of the market. That’s double from a year ago. 
Finally, it looks like Microsoft’s Vista OS continues to struggle in adoption among business customers - with less than 15 percent of the market share.
The report doesn’t draw any conclusions as to why Vista continues to struggle. But here’s one thought. A Forrester report last month called Vista “the new Coke,” a hint that Vista has perception problems. The operating system has taken more than its share of heat for performance problems and, it seems, that business customers who are happy with XP - Coke Classic, if we keep the analogy alive - and see no reason to upgrade. Why not just wait for Windows 7?
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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