Chapter 966: How Many Browsers Are There on the Market?

Igniting the fuse is an equally competitive field of market research. As if they made an appointment together, they presented their own statistics and analysis results at the end of the year.

For example, International Data Information Co., Ltd., headquartered in Massachusetts on the east coast of the United States, pointed out in its own report that Netscape browser netscape_navigator, as a challenger, has achieved a market share of 20%; Polestar, a philosophical browser with a 90% share of the market, quickly fell to 60%-this momentum of one-off and one-off may continue next year.

For the challenger Netscape, the statement of International Data Information is tantamount to great good news, and the employees from top to bottom are all very excited about it.

However, another market research organization in the eastern United States, Gartner, headquartered in Connecticut, has different results.

Compared with the absolute monopoly in the case of one-man singing, the market share of the philosophical browser polestar has indeed declined very significantly, but it still attracts more than two-thirds of Internet users.

The market share of Netscape browser netscape_navigator is growing rapidly, attracting at least one-third of Internet users.

It is worth noting that, in addition to these two top-ranked browsers, the development momentum of third-party browsers cannot be underestimated. The proportion of Internet users attracted by it has reached one-fifth.

The reason why the proportion of Internet users attracted by these three types of browsers exceeds one is that in reality, many Internet users have installed more than one browser on their computers.

This result also reveals the chaos caused by the fierce competition in the browser field at this stage, that is, different browser products have great differences in the degree to which they follow industry standards. Ultimately, web designers must consider which browser Only browsers can render correctly and display the interface they imagined normally, but if users want to browse the World Wide Web, they have to install multiple browsers along with it.

Knuth believes that when the Netscape browser netscape_navigator concentrates on challenging the philosophy browser polestar, the activity of these third-party browsers can even threaten them at the same time. Perhaps, netscape_navigator, which is still relatively weak, will be more affected.

Netscape, which is full of enthusiasm for work, first unconvincedly questioned whether Gartner's market research results can stand up to scrutiny in terms of rigor-the so-called third-party browsers, it is not for the sake of helping others, and they say yes Can't be too late for the Microsoft browser PR bar. Just relying on it, can it seriously affect me?

Like International Data Information Co., Ltd., Gartner has been focusing on the IT industry for many years. Of course, it wants to maintain the authority of its own market research report, so it announced another list of incomplete information collection—you don’t want to accuse Did I use third-party browsers to refer to Microsoft browsers to advertise with ulterior motives? Then I will let you see how big the camp of third-party browsers is now! How complicated!

Listing out this unfinished list can shock the onlookers, including the industry - when did the browser become so easy to get?

I saw that besides the Microsoft browser mentioned by Netscape, there are also AOL browsers, Bertelsmann browsers, and CNN browsers...

There are so many scenarios out there—no wonder Knuth hasn't finished counting them all.

There are several market research reports such as this on Tang Huan's desk. While browsing through them, he listens to reports from Zheru Software CEO Brad Swahlberg and others.

When he saw Gartner's rather spectacular list of third-party browsers, Tang Huan, the initiator of the idea, couldn't help laughing, and joked casually: "Your efficiency is really high,

So many companies have their own browsers. "

Brad Swahlberg answered matter-of-factly: "The main reason is that they regard the value of the browser as a new publicity window similar to the World Wide Web website, especially the technical difficulty is not high-the simplest one just needs to give our browsing Polestar can be replaced with a set of skins with its logo, and it can be launched in a serious manner, so everyone is naturally very motivated.”

"That's also inseparable from your promotion." Tang Huan affirmed with a smile.

I have to say that this kind of leadership charm is completely different from that of Jobs, Gates and others. "Too much, the way of spurring subordinates with extreme belittling has well whitewashed the rigor of the entire company system that even Intel can't match.

Pushing away those market research reports, Tang Huan asked again: "Now, what is the reaction of all parties to this?"

"Netscape, which has been focusing on competing with us, probably hasn't really figured out what's going on until now." Brad Swahlberg couldn't help laughing: "People who have some clues, then We are debating how many of these third-party browsers are technically independent browsers in the strict sense."

Tang Huan sighed and said: "Zheru Software's products are not only browsers, but its mission is so important that it leads the industry and guides the direction of technology. It's really not worth wasting too much energy for a rookie like Netscape. You can only choose to let the browser The weapon domain enters the pattern of thousands of trees and thousands of pear blossoms, drowning the opponent."

It is necessary to point out that freedom and free are the driving force of the Internet, and we should not just talk about it, but should have a deep understanding of the laws of survival and development under this major premise.

The personal computer industry can rely on a set of advanced platform standards to conquer the east and west, conquer the north and south, until it dominates the world, but if the Internet environment is still so domineering, users will already be attracted by free solutions. President Gein Some competitors will break through the existing "lower limit" of solicitation methods.

When Tang Huan contributed the research results of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, the method was far more relaxed and free than the implementation of Fangyuan computer standards, and the purpose was to let everyone transfer from various early Internet application models to on the unified platform of the World Wide Web.

He asked Tim Berners-Lee to form and lead the World Wide Web Consortium. In order to solve the incompatibility problems caused by different platforms, different technologies and different developers in web applications, and ensure the smooth and complete circulation of web information, A series of standards have been formulated, and web application developers and content providers are urged to follow these standards.

The content of these standards includes the specification of the language used, the principles in the development process, the behavior of the interpretation engine, and so on.

Among them, Zheru contributed a lot of technical standard research results including html - hypertext markup language, css - cascading style sheets, scripting_language - scripting language, xml - extensible markup language, etc., to standardize the Internet in one fell swoop move.

But there is one thing, these web standards formulated by the World Wide Web Consortium are not mandatory, but only recommended.

Therefore, this is why Netscape, a stunned young man, added exclusive html and css tags, introduced Sun Microsystems' java language, etc., to challenge the existing standards, and made the same web page, in its own On platforms other than the browser netscape_navigator, it is often impossible to render normally, so that developers have to launch different versions of web pages for mainstream browsers to achieve the best display effect.

The question then arises, Netscape, a shit-stirring stick, makes everyone at a loss and increases the amount of labor out of thin air, but why is it still popular?

This also involves another question, that is, at this stage, what is the specific manifestation of the competition between different browsers? What attracts users so that they cannot do without it?

The answer is simple, and that is functionality - the more the better!

No matter how powerful Zheru Software Company is, it is impossible for its products to have all the functions regardless of their priority or size.

The strongest evidence of this trend is that the version numbers of various browsers are rapidly increasing, and the program size is constantly increasing.

Its priority is even higher than the stability of the product itself - Netscape browser netscape_navigator often crashes during use, which has become an impressive feature of it.

Not to mention, in the context of the barbaric growth of the Internet today, users will buy it.

This phenomenon is similar to the competition in the cpu field. As long as you find a way to increase the operating frequency, you can simply and rudely make up for the performance shortcomings caused by the architecture design-as the saying goes, one beauty can cover up one hundred ugliness.

This is the internal reason why Netscape dares to challenge and live happily in the face of powerful philosophical software in the Internet age.

This is also the real characteristic of the Internet—a current powerhouse like Zheru Software may make a mistake and become eternal hatred; a once frustrated person like IBM may turn around; a new riser like Netscape may succeed in rebellion...

All in all, there are all kinds of possibilities in the Internet age!

Tang It, who saw all this clearly, faced the ups and downs one after another, as always, calmly and commandingly.

The World Wide Web Consortium was blushing and neck-deep, Tim Berners-Lee was so angry that he almost lost his brain, and rebels like Netscape still ignored them and went their own way, so Tang Huan simply abducted the browser competition to another On track—strictly speaking, it was the second round of the original space-time browser war.

Does the browser matter? Of course it is important! It is regarded as a basic platform comparable to an operating system. Whoever controls it, the Internet will belong to that winner!

However, browser competition does not necessarily require developers to do their best to deliver their products to all users.

Don't forget that the current browser is essentially free.

Companies like Zheru and Netscape, which produce browser products, make profits in the background, that is, the company uses web servers that correspond to front-end browsers such as polestar and netscape_navigator to output World Wide Web content.

That being the case, the essence of browser competition is obvious, it is the programming interface - whoever occupies all the terminal computers in front, then the website server behind, it is not difficult to imagine how to choose.

On the other hand, take the browser field that has entered the new century in terms of time and space, such as 360 browser, QQ browser, Sohu browser... Although it is boasted that its own technology is awesome, is it really the case? Is the browser kernel developed by yourself?

The answer is of course not—no matter how dazzling the types of browsers on the market are, the number of cores in them is only a handful, just like Android smartphones. No matter how in-depth development you proudly claim, you can’t change the essence of being born in Google.

So what is the driving force behind so many browsers?

You can think of this answer by yourself, just look at what such browsers do when they are installed on a computer - directly set the Internet homepage of the operating system as your own homepage; the websites listed on the homepage are all collaborators... ...What everyone is fighting for is the entrance for users to access the Internet.

But in fact, this kind of entry is not really that important to Zheru software that provides technical solutions.

In terms of the technical architecture of the Zheru browser polestar, there is one place that other competitors do not care about and are unwilling to follow. Cooperating with the skin technology already used in products such as players, a "new" browser of the oem version can be easily matched.

One of the first benefits of this is that it is very convenient when the operating system integrates polestar.

So, combining the essence of browser competition, which is the background server represented by the programming interface, and the front-end browser as the entrance to the Internet, and the interests of all parties, Tang it directed a thousand-year battle in the browser field. The prosperity drama of pear trees blooming.

Although the third-party browsers derived from the Polestar kernel have affected Polestar's own share, the powerful Zheru software doesn't really care about this. In the back, independent technology competitors like Netscape fell into the ocean of people's war.

Now that he saw the actual effect, Tang Huan was satisfied, but also very funny.

But he remained calm, and turned to ask Brad Swahlberg what specific operations he had in the process of actually suppressing Netscape.