Browser 'war' a massacre

Netscape's market share has fallen below 4%, according to Statmarket, which bases its figures on Web site-based browser counting. Microsoft's market share is 96%. "The browser war is in fact a massacre," says Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket. In fact, Netscape's usage share (not its installed base) has fallen by almost 10% in the past year. This is an interesting contrast with the situation in level 3 browsers where Netscape usage dominated the market even though Internet Explorer was already bundled with the Windows operating system. Conclusion: you can give away as many browsers as you like, however you like, but people won't use them if they aren't good enough to compete. Netscape 4 and 6 weren't good enough.