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Firefox's Market Share Hits 28% in Europe

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday January 30, @04:21PM
from the everything-is-upside-down-in-the-old-country dept.
Mozilla The Internet
Mitchell's Boy Toy writes "Firefox's market share has hit 28.0% in Europe as of December 2007, according to a French web metrics firm. That's a 20.7% increase from the beginning of 2007. 'Finland currently has the highest Firefox market share in Europe with 45.4 percent, followed by Slovenia with 44.6 percent and Poland with 42.4 percent.' IE share fell to just 66.1% in December, a 0.9 point loss in just a month. It should also be noted that Firefox's success could spell trouble for Opera's antitrust complaint: 'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.'"

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[+] Your Rights Online: EU Launches Yet Another Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft 373 comments
Connor writes "The EU has announced a new wide-ranging antitrust probe into Microsoft's practices of bundling software with Windows, as well as whether its products interoperate sufficiently with competitors' products. 'The first area of investigation will concern interoperability of some of Microsoft's products, including Office 2007, the .NET Framework, and some of Microsoft's server products.' The other prong of the investigation is a response to Opera's antitrust complaint, but will look at other products, too. 'The Commission will also look at desktop search and Windows Live as well in addition to other products. The EC says that its investigation will "focus on allegations that a range of products have been unlawfully tied to sales of Microsoft's dominant operating system."'"
Firehose:Firefox market share hits 28% in Europe by Anonymous Coward
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  • shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu (721525) * <yayaguNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday January 30, @04:23PM (#22238908) Journal

    The summary suggests that Firefox's success could come at Opera's expense:

    'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.

    Isn't the issue with Microsoft more correctly framed that Microsoft is using its monopoly and dominance of its OS to stifle competition in other markets, in this case, specifically browsers? I believe that if Firefox is actually close to 30% market share, Microsoft's position in browsers wouldn't (or would barely) meet the threshold for monopoly. It's their position in their OS. Opera's case shouldn't be at risk.

    • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bunratty (545641) on Wednesday January 30, @04:32PM (#22239036)
      Opera's saying that it can't compete because users won't download browsers when they already have IE installed along with Windows, which has more than 90% of the desktop OS market share. But wait! 30% of users download Firefox, what's up with that? I guess users will go out of their way to download other browsers, after all. That undermines Opera's case. Oops!

      • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:5, Interesting)

        by yagu (721525) * <yayaguNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday January 30, @04:43PM (#22239182) Journal

        The key here is they can't compete... not that they can't get some business. Yes, people may have shown they go out of their way to download a different browser, but if the market is still severely skewed (IMO it is) because of a monopoly abuse, there is a case for a remedy.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mqduck (232646)

          Yes, people may have shown they go out of their way to download a different browser, but if the market is still severely skewed (IMO it is) because of a monopoly abuse, there is a case for a remedy.
          I don't really know anything about Opera's case, but isn't the more important monopoly to point out, that they have a monopoly on Windows? (werent they supposed to break up?! :-P)

              • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:4, Insightful)

                by Bogtha (906264) on Wednesday January 30, @06:17PM (#22240402)

                My point is simply that a browser can get 80% or more of the market without being bundled with an OS.

                And b.emile's point was that this has only ever been demonstrated when the dominant operating system didn't have a browser bundled with it. The historical fact you point out is irrelevant because of this. You are excusing bundling because the desired outcome was possible before bundling was put into practice — you are begging the question.

                There's no guarantee that IE usage will drop to a minority share just because it becomes unbundled from Windows.

                It's not about making Internet Explorer drop to a minority share, it's about making browsers compete based on their value rather than whether the dominant desktop OS vendor makes them.

      • Opera and Netscape used to be paid for products, but MS's monopolistic dominance in the OS field allowed them to give the browser away for free.

        Microsofties will go all wobbly on their knees reminding us that IE was better than Netscape, but when your knee

    • Bundling is bundling. The real question is.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k (829181) on Wednesday January 30, @04:46PM (#22239204)
      What would Firefox's share be if IE WASN'T bundled.

      Microsft's bundling definitely killed off the competition. That the competition has come back is proof of how shoddy IE really is, and that it should have been completely unable to compete with Netscape in a fair market.

      • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hkmwbz (531650) on Wednesday January 30, @04:58PM (#22239356) Homepage Journal
        Actually, MS does and can leverage its OS monopoly. It has done so for many years, to the detriment of other browsers. To this day, many sites still require IE. Opera's complaint does not fall apart since it can be shown that Microsoft has indeed been involved in anti-competitive practices, and the recent IE8 standards switch just proves this point.
      • Firefox and Mozilla Seamonkey are both outside the original market (which was web browsers that were created as a profit center).

        Just because free software which comes from outside the market exists and is starting to penetrate doesn't imply that the marke

        • Opera is selling a product? (Score:3, Informative)

          by hkmwbz (531650)

          I really don't feel bad for Opera. I mean, they're in a market selling a product where alternatives exist for free - and really good alternatives.
          Huh? Opera is a free download for PCs. As for mobile, Firefox isn't even able to compete there (and Opera Min

  • What market? (Score:4, Funny)

    by geoffspear (692508) on Wednesday January 30, @04:28PM (#22238970) Homepage
    Firefox accounts for 28% of all web browsers being purchased? How can I get into the business of selling people a product they can get from free?

  • Opera (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hilather (1079603) on Wednesday January 30, @04:35PM (#22239078)
    Personally I think Operas anti-trust suit is a little ridiculous. Even though Microsoft may sell Windows with IE, how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser? Sure you could have someone put it on a disk for you, but its somewhat of a chicken and the egg problem, you need to start with something, and it might as well be a product Microsoft can include in its OS without having to go to a third party. I would be pretty upset if after installing Windows I couldn't browse the net.

    • Re:Opera (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TheRaven64 (641858) on Wednesday January 30, @04:48PM (#22239224) Homepage Journal

      Even though Microsoft may sell Windows with IE, how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser?
      By being OEMs. Every computer needs to come with a web browser, I'll agree, but if IE were not part of Windows then how many OEMs would bundle it? I'd imagine most would ship some cobranded version of Opera or Firefox and add it to their marketing ('comes with full-featured, secure, web browser with 90% more buzzwords than our leading competitor!').

  • Yeah, But That's 28% in *Metric* (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Wednesday January 30, @04:38PM (#22239108) Homepage Journal
    In Imperial measures, that's how many Libraries of Congress?

  • NOTE: Here is the actual report (Score:5, Informative)

    by SplatMan_DK (1035528) * on Wednesday January 30, @05:26PM (#22239744) Homepage Journal
    I tried to submit this story to Slashdot some 6-7 hours ago, when it was still not mentioned. So I happen to have the link to the original report :-)

    Relaunch of Mozilla Firefox's visit share in the European countries at the end of 2007 [xitimonitor.com]

    For more information about XiTi in general, visit their corp. homepage. [xiti.com]

    :-)

    - Jesper

  • According to latest statistics from France.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Colourspace (563895) on Wednesday January 30, @06:04PM (#22240240)
    There are 3.7 Billion Firefox users in Societe General alone!

  • Phhht (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Iron Condor (964856) on Wednesday January 30, @09:05PM (#22241894)

    Twenty eight percent.

    Firefox is as popular in Europe as GW Bush is in the US.

    And they both think that gives them some kind of mandate...

    • Re:IE preventing users to get other browsers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xtifr (1323) on Wednesday January 30, @05:03PM (#22239420) Homepage
      That's right. There are no download tools that could possibly exist besides a browser. Before browsers were created, nobody ever downloaded anything. Furthermore, there's no way that an OEM could possibly bundle their choice of browser with a system. If it isn't created by MS, it can't possibly be installed on a Windows system.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SplatMan_DK (1035528) *

      Okay for all the complainers out there, consider this. If Windows didn't come with a web browser at all, how would you go to the site to download Firefox or Opera?

      You are joking, right?

      The presence of a working browser and a working internet connection is *NOT* a requirement for installing software.

      I have a ton of software (including an FF installer) on my USB key, I have a CD with the typical software I need
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