What Will We Use on June 30, 2011?

Yesterday was Groundhog Day. It is a fun American tradition where a large rodent from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania “whispers” in his caretakers ear to declare early spring or six more weeks of winter on each year of February 2. Everybody knows that winter has to end. Most want winter to end soon, save those who enjoy snow-related sports. We all logically know that a groundhog has no control over the weather, yet these predictions are followed by millions of Americans with hope for sunny days ahead.

Today, I, a life-long Pennsylvania resident I declare early victory with 1/3 of the bet behind this blog: Microsoft will no longer have majority market share on June 30, 2011.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Microsoft no longer has a majority browser market share.

W3Counter watched the traffic of the 32,245 customer websites for the 31 days of January 2010 and reported 49.7% Internet Explorer use. I knew this day was afoot and I predicted IE’s demise at the end February 2010 two months ago. Thanks to all of you who signed up for a free w3counter account, we all get the best global market share reports.

Dan Grossman of W3Counter, also of Pennsylvania, put together these beautiful graphs that show the trends specific to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s demise. Observe the users of the legacy product, Internet Explorer 6 declining over time and look how other Microsoft products fail to directly answer the version 6 loss.

As far as browsers go, the “what will we use” question has been answered: Open source browsers such as Firefox and Chrome seem to be taking Microsoft’s market share. GandhiCon 4 here we come.

Sure, I am a crazy Linux using, free software loving, groundhog watching, winter loathing, anti-Microsoft FUD spreading, Pennsylvanian who correctly predicted browser market share.