[melling]

IE still has 60% market share, and it's holding steady. IE9 is going to be one of the most important products Microsoft ever ships. It will be compatible enough with web standards, and offer enough performance, that it should allow developers to build more sophisticated apps based on open standards. Html5, css3 and fast Javascript will soon be a given.

[fjarlq]

Holding steady? How do you figure that, exactly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#His...

[melling]

I figured that because between June and July, IE marketcshare increased by .4%

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qp...

[jacquesm]

> IE still has 60% market share, and it's holding steady.

You mean: "has been dropping steadily".

> IE9 is going to be one of the most important products Microsoft ever ships.

I've heard that about '95, '98, 2000, XP, Vista and windows 7 as well as a whole bunch of products. They can't all be 'one of the most important products Microsoft ever ships'.

> It will be compatible enough with web standards, and offer enough performance, that it should allow developers to build more sophisticated apps based on open standards. Html5, css3 and fast Javascript will soon be a given.

They already are, just not in the IE world. That's the reason for line one above, Microsoft has been playing catch-up.

[InclinedPlane]

IE had 95%. Things change, sometimes things change quickly. Everyone who is capable of using facebook is capable of installing chrome or firefox. If IE truly fell behind, if a new killer web-app/site comes along that didn't work in IE the marketshare numbers would change overnight.

[patrickaljord]

> if a new killer web-app/site comes along that didn't work in IE the marketshare numbers would change overnight.

That could be the chrome web store with all the cool webgl 3d games (IE9 won't support webgl and google is sure going to take advantage of this).