The browser ballot screen debacle began as a complaint by the makers of the hugely unpopular Opera browser to the EU about the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. This followed on from similar complaints about the bundling of Windows Media Player and it’s sure to rumble on in a variety of ways in the coming years.
The move was widely derided at the time by tech journalists as being unnecessary, confusing and a waste of EU legislature time. Now that the rollout is starting I’m beginning to think that perhaps the biggest winners in this will be consumers in the EU and the biggest losers will be the countries where the browser ballot won’t be seen.
Here’s the logic. If we look back to the time when Internet Explorer 6 ruled the world, having seen off Netscape once and for all, there was stagnation. This allowed all sorts of security exploits and attacks to appear that we’re still suffering from today. Only with the introduction of the Firefox browser from the Mozilla foundation did we have any competition, and thus improved security.
So the first part of the answer is that everybody will win. This move can do nothing except promote competition in the browser market which will, in turn, encourage innovation and transformation. The browser will change immensely in coming years and in a large part we’ll have this ballot screen to thank for it.
But will the companies win? This, after all, was the entire point of the ballot screen. Oh! You thought it was there to provide consumers with better choice? Sadly, all it was intended to do was to make more money for the authors of the smaller browsers, Opera in particular. I don’t think it’ll do that. Certainly it’ll make a small difference and IE’s market share will fall again, but I believe the usage metrics from this that will come from Microsoft in a couple of months, will demonstrate that not much has changed.
But consumers will now have a great choice between the browsers, many if not all of which they’ll have never heard of before. For consumers this is fantastic news and this is where people living in the EU will win where others will lose.
People in the rest of the world won’t get the choice in this way. Their new PCs will come bundled with Internet Explorer, and the non-tech savvy won’t even be aware of other browsers, let alone know where to download one. They simply won’t get the freedom to choose that us lucky people here in the EU will get.
This could lead to pressure elsewhere in the world, especially the US, for Microsoft to introduce the ballot screen further afield. I hope so as choice is always a good thing and should always be encouraged, especially for the non-savvy.
For myself, I’m sticking with IE, at least until the fabulous-looking new Firefox 4 comes out. What will you choose… if you’re even asked that is!
