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Lessons from the Browser Wars
Wed, 2006-04-19 13:21 — PMunn
Twice as effective. And people wonder why the open source community rails against the exclusive agreements Microsoft pushed on the PC makers, forcing them to pay for Windows licenses for every machine they sell (at a reduced price -- that is the incentive) whether they install it or not on the machine.
The new-user versus existing-user-of-competing-product angle is another thing I never thought of.
Professor Pai-Ying Lin offers lessons from the browser wars after a number of experts came together to analyze how Microsoft won the browser war in the late 1990s and how hard it would be for new browser entrants like Firefox and Opera to make inroads against Internet Explorer.
She frames it in terms of economics and market forces, noting that Microsoft's big win in the late 90's was more due to effective distribution than technology.
Quote:
We conclude that while both technological progress (measured by releases of newer and better versions of browsers: version 1, version 1.1, version 2, etc.) and strategic actions (distribution browsers with PC purchases) increase the rate of diffusion of browsers into the population, the strategic actions (distribution or restrictions on distribution in the case of Netscape) are twice as important as technical progress.
Twice as effective. And people wonder why the open source community rails against the exclusive agreements Microsoft pushed on the PC makers, forcing them to pay for Windows licenses for every machine they sell (at a reduced price -- that is the incentive) whether they install it or not on the machine.
This is the conventional wisdom in the computing community -- that MS strongarmed its browser into every Windows install and pushed it heavily in developer circles -- but it's interesting to see the economists and market analysts' take on it.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5288&t=technology
On Firefox making inroads?
Quote:
But its Webmasters who are the real barrier to a late-to-the-game second mover in the browser market. Because different browsers require slightly different code to be viewable, it is costly for Webmasters to write for different types of browsers. They will tend to pick the browser that is most used by the majority of end-users. Thus, the source of network effects in this market is indirect. While end-users don't know which browser other users are using, the developers of the content that make the browser so useful do care that everyone is using a similar browser.Q: So Firefox and other new browsers, no matter that they have new features and refinements that IE lacks, remain at a competitive disadvantage?
A: Game over. Firefox and the others have to get the installed base of IE users to switch to their browser, a much harder proposition than IE faced in the '90s when all it had to do was get new users to pick IE rather than Netscape as their first browser.
The new-user versus existing-user-of-competing-product angle is another thing I never thought of.
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