This is more an observation than anything else, but I’m highly optimistic about the outlook for Microsoft where the web is concerned in 2010. Why? Follow along to find out.

Those of you who have been around since the early days of the web when competition really started getting heated between Microsoft and Netscape know how important online market share is to Microsoft. And these days, it’s all about advertising. Whoever has the most web real estate to run the most ads on with the most agencies/companies contains the midas touch and that’s all there is to it. This week at PDC, Microsoft took us on a journey through the beginnings and vision of Internet Explorer 9. They also unveiled Silverlight 4 in all of its majesty and I have to say… I’m extremely excited about it. Having time to digest all of the information from PDC 2009, I can’t help but run the following equation through my mind:

Internet Explorer 9 + Silverlight 4 + Bing = The Year of Microsoft on the Web in 2010

If (and that’s a huge, “if”) Microsoft can pull off their vision for IE9, I may very well make the jump back to the browser I used to know and love (IE7 is about the time I jumped ship to FireFox, then Opera). Now that Microsoft has spilled the beans about hardware rendering in their browser, I’m sure every other browser out there has now shifted their model to include the very same technology. It’s off to the races and while another company may beat Microsoft to the market, I think Microsoft has a couple of tricks up their sleeve. After all, their new philosophy is to say as little as possible and over-deliver when the time comes (the polar opposite of the Windows Longhorn mentality, basically). With that in mind, I don’t see Microsoft stepping up to the plate with IE9 so soon without having full confidence that – even *if* someone else beats them to the market with similar technology under the hood – they will do what they have set out to do and they will do it better than everyone else. One would hope, at least.

Let’s step away from Internet Explorer 9 for a moment and talk Bing.

Bing. As a brand, it’s starting to catch on. I couldn’t stand the name initially, but it has managed to grow on me. As a search engine, I’m not sure that it will ever fully replace Google for me, but I find myself using Bing more and more. It provides additional results for me that Google doesn’t (and for how I use Google, that’s huge) and for shopping and travel, I look no further. Where I’m concerned as a consumer, Bing has the shopping/travel market share 100%. Also, I’ve spotted Bing as being the catalyst for traffic to my site more and more. Sure, it’s a very low percentage compared to Google, but it has knocked Yahoo out of ranking. Slowly but surely, Bing keeps creeping up in market share. I hope that trend continues as Bing is truly worthy of being an accessory to Google (as I said, I doubt it will ever be a full-on replacement for Google, but you never know what can happen years down the road).

Now, this is the point in which I note the obvious combination of Google and Firefox. Although Firefox has increasingly become a sluggish product for me (even on my blazing new gaming rig), I still prefer it over IE8. Even in compatibility mode, I notice a number of the pages I frequent acting strangely in IE8. Now, what are the odds of someone actually using and enjoying a combination of Bing and IE9? Google has become a habit. It’s almost instinct to have Google as your main page, so to change that behavior, it would take quite a concious act – one which I may be willing to go through with when IE9 finally drops. Once again, I doubt the combination of Google/Firefox will ever drop below the combination of any other search engine/web browser, but it’s an interesting thought none-the-less.

Lastly, we have Silverlight 4. What an exciting time for developers and Microsoft alike. Silverlight 4 takes Silverlight well-outside the realm of being labeled an Adobe Flash clone and finally places it into a territory all its own (they have been pulling away from that comparison all along, but Silverlight 4 finally commands all the respect Silverlight deserves). If developers can jump on the Silverlight/WCF boat and really help the technology take off, it will be to the benefit of everyone! It almost seems foreign that a technology like Silverlight could come along this late in the game, best Adobe Flash, and become the new standard in interactive/high-def/streaming media, but I really hope it does. And with the rumors of Windows Mobile 7 containing Silverlight controls (at the very least, there’s Silverlight for Mobile), I do not see this technology going away anytime soon (and that’s a good thing).

There is so much more I have to learn about all of the technologies above, so I’m not trying to pretend to be some expert on it all. These are just my personal observations and a culmination of thoughts from the excitement generated by putting all of this together. It seems that if Microsoft was/is ever to finally gain/reclaim web browser and search engine market share, 2010 is going to be the time for it. Now, it may not happen all at once in 2010. It will take time, just as Bing has. Unfortunately, there’s a negative stigma out there about Microsoft’s products in regards to the web. It has almost become a fad to hate Internet Explorer and any type of search engine that Microsoft creates, but now is the time when people should step back and actually give this stuff a chance (or a second-chance, as the case may be for IE9). Yes, at the end of the day, Microsoft is a business. They want to make as much as they can, but then again, that’s no different from any other company. The trick is to put a product out there that will not only be useful, but possibly life-changing… and when I say, “life-changing,” that can be as simple as something someone can leverage in addition to what they already know and love.

I was sold the moment Bing provided results for an exclusive for me that Google failed to. As for how I use the web, that’s a product I’ll stick with. Best of luck to Microsoft in 2010. So many people love to hate them, but I, for one, am excited to see what they put out to enrich the lives of those who give their products the fair shot they deserve. Feel free to chime in with your comments and let me know what you think.

Oh, and for the first time ever, I’m compelled to attend a MIX conference. It’s shaping up to be fantastic next year!

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

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