Internet browsers have always been a stone in Microsoft’s shoe. Following Internet Explorer’s demise (abandoned after years of -un-loyal services), it’s Edge’s turn to fall into limbo. This time its lifespan was even shorter.
Edge disappeared as quickly as it came. Launched three and a half years ago, it’s already scraped. It was supposed to be the renewal of Microsoft in the browser landscape following the epic fail of the Internet Explorer (IE) odyssey.
Internet Explorer, a huge failure
At the beginning of the Internet, IE was as dominant as Microsoft was regarding OS for PC. All Microsoft had to do was to build a reliable tool that would upgrade in time and following user demands. Even if it had been slightly below the competition, it could have remained the leader.
Except IE never made par. The arrival of better-designed browsers which were faster and more ergonomic -Firefox first then Chrome- made IE feel old. The market share regularly dropped.
Edge, a novelty that ends in the wall
In 2015, Microsoft wanted to start anew and gave Windows 10 a new browser. Rebuilt. Reset. Eager to fight. Three and a half years later, Edge takes only 4% of the market. That’s less than the share of IE still running on pre-2015 Windows.
No public announcement has been made yet. But Microsoft teams are already working on a « new browser ». Epic fail.
Relying on a Chrome’s rendering engine to get back on their feet
To start all over again, the engineers will drop the rendering engine EdgeHTML. They will replace it with renowned open-source engine « Chromium ». It’s part of Chrome, the absolute leader among browsers. The name Edge may endure but the browser itself will have nothing in common with the previous one.
To start again, Microsoft abandons the idea of doing it all by itself. It will use the rival open-source weapons. A « low profile » approach which may hold good surprises. Even long strings of failures must stop at some point.