IE on the rise as Chrome stumbles

I guess it makes sense that at a time when Madonna releases a new album, we’d get reports of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer being on the rise. In both cases, it’s an older property and everyone thought society was ready to move on to Lady Gaga (Google Chrome) or Ke$ha (Firefox). But the web metrics company Net Applications says that in March, Internet Explorer not only stabilized, it actually increased market share by 1.2 percent. IE has long enjoyed market dominance although there has been a slow decline as Chrome and Firefox gained traction. In this report, Chrome actually slips a little. It’s only one report and it’s only a slight nudge upwards for IE but it’s good news for Microsoft, which would love to stay locked in as a popular consumer choice and have IE be less a Zune and more of an Xbox.