Chrome Gains Ground, Passes Firefox

From PC World

One of the last frontiers of dominance for Google has been their inability to break through the web browsing stranglehold held by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. That may all be changing as news broke last week that Google’s Chrome has overtaken Mozilla’s Firefox browser to become the world’s second most popular browser. “…in May, Chrome gained 1.3 percentage points, more than double its average increase over the last 12 months, to climb to 20.2%, while Firefox lost six-tenths of a point to fall to 19.6%” (Keizer, 2012). This is a significant moment for Google as they try and gain more market share in this sector behind Microsoft’s uber-popular Internet Explorer.

Experts have noted that as Google continues to roll out more and more applications and tools, the symbiotic nature of their products will drive more and more users to use their browsers. Additionally, web metrics tools like page rank and even Google Analytics tools are more easily accessed through Chrome than via Mozilla or Internet Explorer. One of the challenges in getting more users to utilize Chrome is the very fact that many computers come preloaded with Internet Explorer and consumers either don’t realize they have other options or are too lazy to explore these tools. This is where marketing and the resources of each company come into play as Microsoft and Google absolutely dwarf the size of Mozilla and are able to roll out their efforts on multiple platforms and channels. Additionally, the size and power of the two e-giants allow for them to sustain larger marketing and commerce losses than Mozilla. Having said of all that, Mozilla has survived up to this point with lower marketing spends and overhead costs.

Mozilla famously has gotten to their saturation point with classic grassroots marketing and aggressive strategies. By utilizing strategies like open-source labs, campus outreach and even community involvement, Mozilla has gained their market share in a simpler, more methodical manner, rather than throwing money at expensive online and offline campaigns. This strategy completely runs counter to the effort of Chrome and Internet Explorer, who have expensive branded campaigns running nationally via TV and other mainstream media. Despite this, others have noted the limits for a company like Mozilla in this space. “Of course, it could be argued that Mozilla is so unique that its grass-roots marketing programs can't be replicated. Firefox is an open-source software product: It's free and it has a massive and devoted global developer community to leverage. It's not as if Mozilla is trying to sell soap or burgers” (Schmitt, 2009). Perhaps this battle will crescendo with news that Chrome has finally passed Mozilla, but only time will tell.

References

Keizer, G. (2012, June 1). Chrome Steals Second From Firefox. PCWorld. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/256624/chrome_steals_second_from_firefox_in_browser_wars.html

Schmitt, G. (2009, June 10). How Firefox Gets Grassroots Marketing Right. Ad Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/digital-firefox-grass-roots-marketing/137197/