Steve Ballmer: Chrome And Safari Are Rounding Errors(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Steve Ballmer: Chrome And Safari Are Rounding Errors
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/29/ballmer-microsoft-interview-chrome-windows-internetexplorer/
60 comments
Isn't it an accepted journalistic standard of some kind to smooth out the many stutters and small grammatical mistakes everyone makes when speaking verbally? Exact, word to word transcriptions like this are actually a classic dirty trick for news organizations to try to embarrass politicians they don't like. (Ballmer does much better than most.)
TechCrunch seems to revel in the abandonment of accepted journalistic standards. Story embargoes for example.
To be fair to TechCrunch, embargoes are a dumb idea. If you don't want people to know about something until a certain date, don't tell them until that date.
Embargoes allow real journalists to do better research, to make sure they understand what they are writing about and to, in general, provide higher quality information than TC would ever consider doing.
> Embargoes allow real journalists to do better research
That's true, but basically irrelevant because "real journalists" (by that definition) are only slightly more common than unicorns.
And it's irrelevant even wrt real journalists because the significant value that they actually add is their "scoop". If readers don't care, if they're satisfied with the reprinted press-release, ....
That's true, but basically irrelevant because "real journalists" (by that definition) are only slightly more common than unicorns.
And it's irrelevant even wrt real journalists because the significant value that they actually add is their "scoop". If readers don't care, if they're satisfied with the reprinted press-release, ....
Perhaps, but most bloggers wouldn't bother doing the research anyway. There are two kinds of news sources these days; blogs for instant facts, and real news sources (NYT, etc.) for actual thoughtful analysis. I would never expect the NYT to be first on any story, but I do expect it to be a good read. Usually my expectations are met.
Anyway, TC is not journalism, it's a blog.
Anyway, TC is not journalism, it's a blog.
There are two kinds of news sources these days; blogs for people who have personal experience of the topic, and real news sources (NYT, etc.) for reprinting press releases of those companies that don't compete with their parent media group.
"And Microsoft’s competitors are doing exactly what Microsoft is prohibited from doing – bundling an operating system and a browser."
Yes, and ordinary people are allowed to step within 200 yards of schools. Other people, those tried and found guilty of certain crimes, are not.
I despair that even tech journalists can't grasp the basics of what is one of the biggest tech news stories of the last twenty years.
Yes, and ordinary people are allowed to step within 200 yards of schools. Other people, those tried and found guilty of certain crimes, are not.
I despair that even tech journalists can't grasp the basics of what is one of the biggest tech news stories of the last twenty years.
That is ridiculous. They got punished because they were ahead of the times, not because they were evil. What they did by bundling IE with Windows was the right strategic move. They understood that the browser was an integral piece of the experience before anybody else.
They got punished for making deals that locked Netscape out of the market by making OEM's pay more for including competitors products.
Intel gives incentives to OEMs to lock out AMD.
Google pays Mozilla to lock out other search engines on Firefox start page and search bar (and it does not allow customization at install time).
Apple does not allow 3rd party apps colliding with Apple produced ones on App Store.
Any comments on these other monopolies' actions? Every company does the same.
I'll skip the Intel / AMD thing, it is already being looked at. It seems as though it would be considered anti-competitive.
Google is buying a placement (they pay Mozilla and probably Apple). This really doesn't do much in the way of restricting the activities of other search players. Google is more likely to get themselves in trouble with the FCC over Google Voice.
Apple does not have the market share to matter. There are plenty of phones and Apple's share is tiny compared to someone like Nokia. Restricting the types of apps for a closed system hasn't got anyone in trouble yet, since you have to do a lot of logic leaps / market segmenting to get to a monopoly position for Apple. Heck, the iPod and iTunes are nowhere near monopolies.
Microsoft, in order to protect Internet Explorer (product A), charged higher prices on Windows (product B) to OEMs that wanted to include Netscape Navigator. This is an illegal tying of products. It is considered a restriction of trade. Given Microsoft's market share (and probably, sadly, Microsoft's at that time low contributions to political parties), this is major league anti-competitive behavior. Tying of unrelated products is the problem.
As a side note, I get that you are trying to prove a point with the logic "everyone does it, so it is fine", but I am neither fond of that particular phrase nor do I believe it is true for that matter.
Google is buying a placement (they pay Mozilla and probably Apple). This really doesn't do much in the way of restricting the activities of other search players. Google is more likely to get themselves in trouble with the FCC over Google Voice.
Apple does not have the market share to matter. There are plenty of phones and Apple's share is tiny compared to someone like Nokia. Restricting the types of apps for a closed system hasn't got anyone in trouble yet, since you have to do a lot of logic leaps / market segmenting to get to a monopoly position for Apple. Heck, the iPod and iTunes are nowhere near monopolies.
Microsoft, in order to protect Internet Explorer (product A), charged higher prices on Windows (product B) to OEMs that wanted to include Netscape Navigator. This is an illegal tying of products. It is considered a restriction of trade. Given Microsoft's market share (and probably, sadly, Microsoft's at that time low contributions to political parties), this is major league anti-competitive behavior. Tying of unrelated products is the problem.
As a side note, I get that you are trying to prove a point with the logic "everyone does it, so it is fine", but I am neither fond of that particular phrase nor do I believe it is true for that matter.
Intel is facing massive fines in EU for its business practices regardarding AMD.
The difference is Mozilla and Apple don't have 9X% market share.
And google doesn't have 9x% market share?
Well, no, actually, I'm pretty sure they don't.
You'd be surprised at how many people still use Yahoo for search.
You'd be surprised at how many people still use Yahoo for search.
Is Google using that 9x% market share (in search engines) to decimate competition in other markets based solely on the tying occurring in the original market (i.e., what Microsoft was actually convicted of doing)? No.
Hah, Microsoft underestimated the importance of the internet for several years. Netscape was the big browser before IE was bundled with Windows, remember?
Their bundling of IE with Windows, however "strategically right" it was, was also an abuse of monopoly power. And they were convicted of it.
Their bundling of IE with Windows, however "strategically right" it was, was also an abuse of monopoly power. And they were convicted of it.
How is giving consumers more for less an abuse of power?
It's incorrect to assume that their motivations were to give consumers more for less. These quotations from that era paint a different picture:
"We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they're selling, we're going to give away for free" - Paul Maritz
"We're giving away a pretty good browser as part of the operating system. How long can they survive selling it?" - Steve Ballmer
"We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they're selling, we're going to give away for free" - Paul Maritz
"We're giving away a pretty good browser as part of the operating system. How long can they survive selling it?" - Steve Ballmer
What difference do the motivations make? Browsers are now free. If I can get a few more apps free with my OS, I'd like those too.
I see what may be two separate questions here:
1) Why did the court consider motivations to be important in the US v Microsoft antitrust case? The body of law and precedent requires that it does, in this case. Though I am not a lawyer, a quick google search found a key phrase in Judge Jackson's Conclusions of Law document: "once it is proved that the defendant possesses monopoly power in a relevant market, liability for monopolization depends on a showing that the defendant used anticompetitive methods to achieve or maintain its position."
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f218600/218633.htm
That last phrase "to achieve or maintain its position" may involve the consideration of motivations. Otherwise, a defendant might say "we weren't dumping our product; we were merely giving our customers more for less!" The discovery of telling quotations such as the two above would give lie to such a defense, and this is why the "cut off their air supply" quotation was considered so carefully during the proceeding. That document is very interesting to read. It discusses motivations in several places.
2) Why does it matter today, now that browsers are (for the most part, Opera and others excluded) free?
Well, I guess it's really the Consent Decree and the Rule of Law that makes it matter today. If the terms of your divorce say that you're not allowed to see your ex-wife's children, it doesn't matter if 8 years have passed and you have since stopped drinking. You must abide by the terms of the decree to avoid contempt of court.
I said "8 years" in the above example, because that decree became effective in 2001. It's interesting to note that there was a prior decree in 1995, and Microsoft did actually have to go through a contempt of court proceeding for not being in compliance with its terms:
http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/dojvmsft/Default.htm
1) Why did the court consider motivations to be important in the US v Microsoft antitrust case? The body of law and precedent requires that it does, in this case. Though I am not a lawyer, a quick google search found a key phrase in Judge Jackson's Conclusions of Law document: "once it is proved that the defendant possesses monopoly power in a relevant market, liability for monopolization depends on a showing that the defendant used anticompetitive methods to achieve or maintain its position."
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f218600/218633.htm
That last phrase "to achieve or maintain its position" may involve the consideration of motivations. Otherwise, a defendant might say "we weren't dumping our product; we were merely giving our customers more for less!" The discovery of telling quotations such as the two above would give lie to such a defense, and this is why the "cut off their air supply" quotation was considered so carefully during the proceeding. That document is very interesting to read. It discusses motivations in several places.
2) Why does it matter today, now that browsers are (for the most part, Opera and others excluded) free?
Well, I guess it's really the Consent Decree and the Rule of Law that makes it matter today. If the terms of your divorce say that you're not allowed to see your ex-wife's children, it doesn't matter if 8 years have passed and you have since stopped drinking. You must abide by the terms of the decree to avoid contempt of court.
I said "8 years" in the above example, because that decree became effective in 2001. It's interesting to note that there was a prior decree in 1995, and Microsoft did actually have to go through a contempt of court proceeding for not being in compliance with its terms:
http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/dojvmsft/Default.htm
For exactly the same reason as "dumping": It results in lower consumer prices in the short term, with less competition (and higher prices) in the long term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_%28pricing_policy%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_%28pricing_policy%29
Where do we see these higher prices in the long term? Not in the browser market. Where else? I'm sure there are some examples but they must be few and far between. Not even Standard Oil got pricing power.
Ask the court.
There is no evidence Microsoft was ever ahead of its time with the possible exception of building a BASIC interpreter for the Altair.
Emphasis on "possible".
Emphasis on "possible".
Bundling the browser with the OS was the right thing to do, independent of any other actions of MS. EVERY MODERN OPERATING SYSTEM COMES BUNDLED WITH A BROWSER. Mac OS, Ubuntu, even the Palm Pre.
People like picking on MS because they believe in their heart of hearts that it was some evil on MS's part which led to IE becoming the dominant browser, but that is not so. At the crucial moment MS had the better browser (IE 4 vs. Netscape 4), I made the switch myself to IE when nobody else was using it because it was a better experience (I currently use chrome for the same reasons). At a time when Netscape was bloated, slow, unstable and had serious usability problems, IE was faster, more stable, and had a better UI. MS bundled their browser with their OS. And, even more importantly, Netscape went into a phase of directionless thrashing around. We know now that they rewrote their code base for NS 4 for no reason whatsoever. They continued to churn their code for several years with no noticeable improvements to the core browser functionality. People tend to forget that Netscape effectively died at the height of the browser wars. They screwed up so bad that they dumped the browser on the open source community, which spent several years cleaning up the code until it finally turned into a decent browser.
But by then Netscape's failure and MS's success had already cemented IE as the dominant browser, at the time.
But despite IE's bundling there is today again a healthy competition amongst browsers. Firefox has a sizable marketshare with chrome, safari, opera and others as viable alternatives. Solid proof that with a better browser it's possible to compete against bundled browsers.
People like picking on MS because they believe in their heart of hearts that it was some evil on MS's part which led to IE becoming the dominant browser, but that is not so. At the crucial moment MS had the better browser (IE 4 vs. Netscape 4), I made the switch myself to IE when nobody else was using it because it was a better experience (I currently use chrome for the same reasons). At a time when Netscape was bloated, slow, unstable and had serious usability problems, IE was faster, more stable, and had a better UI. MS bundled their browser with their OS. And, even more importantly, Netscape went into a phase of directionless thrashing around. We know now that they rewrote their code base for NS 4 for no reason whatsoever. They continued to churn their code for several years with no noticeable improvements to the core browser functionality. People tend to forget that Netscape effectively died at the height of the browser wars. They screwed up so bad that they dumped the browser on the open source community, which spent several years cleaning up the code until it finally turned into a decent browser.
But by then Netscape's failure and MS's success had already cemented IE as the dominant browser, at the time.
But despite IE's bundling there is today again a healthy competition amongst browsers. Firefox has a sizable marketshare with chrome, safari, opera and others as viable alternatives. Solid proof that with a better browser it's possible to compete against bundled browsers.
You're right that MS won the browser wars because IE4 was simply better, but MS made a critical error by preventing OEMs from bundling Netscape. They would have won anyway, but instead they needlessly created an underdog and got pinned (rightly IMHO) for abusing their market position.
The interesting thing about the browser wars is it's one of the few occasions when history was written by the vanquished.
The interesting thing about the browser wars is it's one of the few occasions when history was written by the vanquished.
By integral piece of the experience, do you mean non-standards-compliant piece of dung?
I had to tweet about this concept. Hope you don't mind.
http://twitter.com/rbanffy/statuses/4472177562
http://twitter.com/rbanffy/statuses/4472177562
Has Ballmer lost a finger? For safari+chrome to be a rounding error you have to be using a single digit of precision in a number base lower than 10.
Wow, as much crap as my slashbot self has given Ballmer over the years, this interview really shows him having his act together.
To me, it suggests Google's competitive strategy is having exactly the desired effect.
Android and Chrome are not Google's core business. I do not believe they truly expect to take the lion's share of the OS market from Microsoft.
However, Ballmer is obviously spending a lot of time thinking about them. By forcing Microsoft to focus on defending their core product, they are distracting them from attacking in new markets. Resources focused on defending Windows are resources not spent on competing with Google search, for example.
Joel describes the general idea here:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html
Android and Chrome are not Google's core business. I do not believe they truly expect to take the lion's share of the OS market from Microsoft.
However, Ballmer is obviously spending a lot of time thinking about them. By forcing Microsoft to focus on defending their core product, they are distracting them from attacking in new markets. Resources focused on defending Windows are resources not spent on competing with Google search, for example.
Joel describes the general idea here:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html
And Chrome encourages MS to improve IE, which is good for Google because most Google software "runs" in IE.
I think it's a little more than that. Google's core revenue is from advertising. They make a lot of money from their little text ads. Because they have so much of the advertising market, every minute you spend on the web is essentially more revenue for them, and the more pages you view in that minute the more revenue for them. Thus they are happy if you spend more time online.
If that means making a better browser so people will be more comfortable on the web and spend less time loading pages, Google gets more revenue.
If it means making a good mobile OS so people spend time on the web from their phones, Google gets more revenue.
If it means their competitors improve their products to make people happy to spend more time on the web, Google gets more revenue.
Improvements to IE is more ad impressions/clicks for Google as people will be inclined to spend more time and visit more sites online. It's not even about IE "running" Google software as much as it is improving the Internet, which is where Google ads display.
If that means making a better browser so people will be more comfortable on the web and spend less time loading pages, Google gets more revenue.
If it means making a good mobile OS so people spend time on the web from their phones, Google gets more revenue.
If it means their competitors improve their products to make people happy to spend more time on the web, Google gets more revenue.
Improvements to IE is more ad impressions/clicks for Google as people will be inclined to spend more time and visit more sites online. It's not even about IE "running" Google software as much as it is improving the Internet, which is where Google ads display.
He had some good points. The Chrome/Android split I agree with him on - not sure what Google is doing there - but I wouldn't bet on it being a long-term mistake like Ballmer is doing. He also continues touting Windows and the Windows Mobile platform. That's obvious, but what are they actually doing to innovate or compete? He just talks about attack vectors to the behemoth that is Microsoft. I still think that Ballmer just fundamentally does not "get it".
Despite Ballmer's attempts at FUD[1] until we see the source code we don't know that Chrome OS is entirely different from Android. They both use the Linux kernel and Chrome OS's new window manager just might be inspired by Android's window manager. Eric Schmidt himself said:
> “There’s a great deal of commonality,” Schmidt said. “Eventually they may merge even closer.”
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-googles-schmidt-on-chrome...
[1] "I think that’s a little tougher for them now because they basically tell the hardware community Android is dead, Chrome is the thing or maybe Chrome isn’t the thing. Maybe it is Android. The cacophony there is probably helpful to us in the grand scheme of things and I don’t know why they would have chosen to do it, at least the way you read the press. It probably has a lot to do with internal squabbles, but I just don’t know."
> “There’s a great deal of commonality,” Schmidt said. “Eventually they may merge even closer.”
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-googles-schmidt-on-chrome...
[1] "I think that’s a little tougher for them now because they basically tell the hardware community Android is dead, Chrome is the thing or maybe Chrome isn’t the thing. Maybe it is Android. The cacophony there is probably helpful to us in the grand scheme of things and I don’t know why they would have chosen to do it, at least the way you read the press. It probably has a lot to do with internal squabbles, but I just don’t know."
I had a similar reaction: that he really had his "talking points" together.
We have one and a half operating systems, Windows and Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile is kind of a half because it’s not entirely the same as Windows. And everyday, I say I’d love to get those two things to share more.
Say, like Apple, Steve?
Say, like Apple, Steve?
If you believe webapps are the way of the future, then the browser stats are completely different. Then IE is a rounding error.
IE simply doesn't cut it with js speed/stability etc
IE simply doesn't cut it with js speed/stability etc
Big if.
Wikipedia: Netscape began to experiment with prototypes of a web-based system, known internally as "Constellation", which would allow a user to access and edit his or her files anywhere across a network no matter what computer or operating system he or she happened to be using.
Industry observers confidently forecast the dawn of a new era of connected computing. The underlying operating system, it was believed, would become an unimportant consideration; future applications would run within a web browser. This was seen by Netscape as a clear opportunity to entrench Navigator at the heart of the next generation of computing, and thus gain the opportunity to expand into all manner of other software and service market.
Wikipedia: Netscape began to experiment with prototypes of a web-based system, known internally as "Constellation", which would allow a user to access and edit his or her files anywhere across a network no matter what computer or operating system he or she happened to be using.
Industry observers confidently forecast the dawn of a new era of connected computing. The underlying operating system, it was believed, would become an unimportant consideration; future applications would run within a web browser. This was seen by Netscape as a clear opportunity to entrench Navigator at the heart of the next generation of computing, and thus gain the opportunity to expand into all manner of other software and service market.
He is focused on browser market share, when ironically that is precisely what's forced Google into this position. If IE6 wasn't a ridiculous percentage of the market, its brokenness wouldn't matter enough for another company to fix it.
Google doesn't care whose browser is used, they care about a sane foundation on which to deploy web apps. Steve shouldn't sound so hurt, it's not as if the entire industry hasn't been "asking nicely" for years to have IE catch up. They can't cry now that someone has taken them by force.
Steve also goes into all the wonderful things happening in IE8 and beyond. And they're irrelevant, for the same reason: IE6 is still the breaking point. Any "innovation" in IE that doesn't come in the form of a free update to IE6 that works on XP, doesn't matter.
Google doesn't care whose browser is used, they care about a sane foundation on which to deploy web apps. Steve shouldn't sound so hurt, it's not as if the entire industry hasn't been "asking nicely" for years to have IE catch up. They can't cry now that someone has taken them by force.
Steve also goes into all the wonderful things happening in IE8 and beyond. And they're irrelevant, for the same reason: IE6 is still the breaking point. Any "innovation" in IE that doesn't come in the form of a free update to IE6 that works on XP, doesn't matter.
[deleted]
Most of the people I come in contact with don't even have the faintest idea what IE or Chrome is. They might complain that their "facebook" does not work anymore knowing nothing of the changes occurred to their browser. It's not relevant to the masses who is giving the browser. If Windows will continue to dominate the laptop/desktop market then it matters nothing if the browser comes from a different source because it is not the browser that costs.
Who wouldn't protect their own market share? I don't think any startupers will welcome a new thing that takes over their business slowly. When it's on a small scale it makes up a good story when it is global it's war. Good for the consumers though.
Who wouldn't protect their own market share? I don't think any startupers will welcome a new thing that takes over their business slowly. When it's on a small scale it makes up a good story when it is global it's war. Good for the consumers though.
It might explain why his software is hated so much, if it routinely rounds off 5+%.
If chrome and safari are rounding errors, sign me up for some of that rounding action. On my site, year to date shows IE "rounding" down by some 20%. Most of it to FF, but Safari and Chrome are both growing. Seems like only yesterday Ballmer was dismissing FF as well. I'd say Ballmer's hubris has remained steady though.
you can't really blame him. ballmer's primary job is to be a cheerleader for microsoft.
ballmer also said that the iphone would get absolutely no market share at all. i doubt even he believed that.
the practical upshot is that you can't trust high-tech ceos to tell you which way the wind is blowing.
ballmer also said that the iphone would get absolutely no market share at all. i doubt even he believed that.
the practical upshot is that you can't trust high-tech ceos to tell you which way the wind is blowing.
Chrome and Safari might be rounding errors, but resources wasted on supporting 'your' browsers definitively are NOT.
Much as I like them, you have to question whether Google are going to be smart/rich enough to flank Microsoft. Or whether they can co-exist in some of these markets in the future.
My prediction is that Google will not be able to beat Microsoft, and it doesn't help that they are smart or rich.
IMHO, their strategy to making OS irrelevant by having everything run from Chrome OS might not succeed in the end.
Just one example: Some time ago, I wanted to become more independent from MS and store my files online, so I started to use Google Docs. It's quite usable for home use, but currently, I switched back to my old Office 2000, with the difference that my files are not only on my harddisk, but I share them on the cloud with Live Mesh. This is a some kind of foreplay for the next year, when MS will come with Office 2010 and also Online office. So MS will have both the native windows client and the online application, while Google has only the later. I really don't see how they can compete here.
The danger for Google lies in the fact, that all their online assets are copy-able, and MS are slowly becoming able to achieve that.
IMHO, their strategy to making OS irrelevant by having everything run from Chrome OS might not succeed in the end.
Just one example: Some time ago, I wanted to become more independent from MS and store my files online, so I started to use Google Docs. It's quite usable for home use, but currently, I switched back to my old Office 2000, with the difference that my files are not only on my harddisk, but I share them on the cloud with Live Mesh. This is a some kind of foreplay for the next year, when MS will come with Office 2010 and also Online office. So MS will have both the native windows client and the online application, while Google has only the later. I really don't see how they can compete here.
The danger for Google lies in the fact, that all their online assets are copy-able, and MS are slowly becoming able to achieve that.
But to win this fight, all Google has to do is to be better able to respond to customer needs than Microsoft. Maybe you're right, and they're going to lose. Customers stand a good chance of winning either way, though.
The difference is that the feedback loop for Microsoft for, say, Excel is that they want to sell 50,000-seat site licenses to accounting firms and will do what they need to do technologically and commercially in order to do that. As an aside, Excel becomes a superset of what other users need. The feedback loop for Google's spreadsheet is... what?
Remember Google's users are not its customers, they're its product.
Remember Google's users are not its customers, they're its product.
I was referring to Microsoft being rich and smart not Google.
On the Ballmer side, he is such "great" at this kind of sentences that two of his greatest hits: (Google is a) deck of cards. (iphone) does not appeal to biz customers.
If their market shares are rounding errors, MS's market cap is a dropped decimal. :-)
Ballmer is misguided on several counts:
Chrome, firefox, and safari are much, much more likely to be used by the technically elite. These are the people who fix their friends' and relatives' computers, who design and build websites, who write about technology, they have the ability to influence the less sophisticated in browser choice.
More importantly, browsers are free (except Opera), and in the internet age the process of changing your choice of browser is about as difficult as posting to facebook. This makes browser market share potentially highly volatile. Firefox and chrome are slowly but steadily making gains in market share, and firefox is already within striking distance of becoming the dominant browser. There is very much the potential of reaching a tipping point where the featureset of IE becomes so outdated that it no longer becomes a viable browser choice. And if we ever reach that point, and I believe we very well could given the differential in pace of development of firefox/chrome/safari vs. IE, then the entire browser marketshare arena could be turned upside down overnight. One need only to look at the growth in popularity of twitter, for example, to see how fast things can change in the modern internet world.
Chrome, firefox, and safari are much, much more likely to be used by the technically elite. These are the people who fix their friends' and relatives' computers, who design and build websites, who write about technology, they have the ability to influence the less sophisticated in browser choice.
More importantly, browsers are free (except Opera), and in the internet age the process of changing your choice of browser is about as difficult as posting to facebook. This makes browser market share potentially highly volatile. Firefox and chrome are slowly but steadily making gains in market share, and firefox is already within striking distance of becoming the dominant browser. There is very much the potential of reaching a tipping point where the featureset of IE becomes so outdated that it no longer becomes a viable browser choice. And if we ever reach that point, and I believe we very well could given the differential in pace of development of firefox/chrome/safari vs. IE, then the entire browser marketshare arena could be turned upside down overnight. One need only to look at the growth in popularity of twitter, for example, to see how fast things can change in the modern internet world.
Opera is free for personal use. It has been since version 8.5, released in 2005.