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While the eventual downfall of Internet Explorer was seen as a foregone conclusion by those who monitor web trends, the news might come as an unwelcome surprise for those who are somewhat less up-to-date.
For the most part, though, this news is a whimper rather than a bang - a footnote at the end of an iconic story spanning more than 25 years.
As a current professional in the IT industry, I'll break down some possible reasons for this decision, and what we can learn from it.
Searching for the answer<\/strong>
Almost everyone is familiar with the idea of \"googling\" something, but there's no such thing as \"microsofting\" something. How did Google<\/a> manage to become synonymous with web searching, while Microsoft, despite its long and pioneering history, failed to become synonymous with anything?
The answer is market share. Google handles 92.24% of web searches - more than 3.5 billion requests a day. Microsoft's own search engine, Bing<\/a>, has a paltry 2.29%.
It's easy to see why users prefer Google's own web browser, Chrome, over Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which uses Bing as its default search engine. Users who prefer searching via Google (which is almost everyone) can make Google the default search engine in Internet Explorer. But it's probably easier just to install Chrome and use Google from there.
Success breeds complacency; complacency breeds failure<\/strong>
Microsoft wasn't always a bit player. Back when the web was in its infancy, it was a market-leading pioneer. Before there were app stores, or 5G, or even widespread personal computers, there were large mainframe computers with \"unfriendly\" Unix-based operating systems developed in the 1970s.
These systems were about as bare-bones as you can get, with little consideration given to graphics or usability. Unix's original web browser, Netscape, was similarly no-frills.
This is where Microsoft came in, by focusing on making \"personal computers\" more personal. With much nicer designs and more intuitive user interfaces, by the time Internet Explorer launched in 1995, Microsoft had cemented itself at the forefront of the digital world.
But as US Baptist minister and civil rights leader Benjamin E. Mays famously warned, \"The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency.\"
Having established its reputation, Microsoft stopped pushing Internet Explorer's development, and started venturing elsewhere, continually improving Windows but not its web browser. From that point on, Internet Explorer was always late to the party in introducing innovations such as tabbed browsing and search bars. It fell further into irrelevance and obsolescence.