1. IE on XP isn't getting any better, it's stuck at IE8. I'm sure people in Redmond are as desperate for people to upgrade from XP as we all were for people to upgrade from IE6, but as we've experienced, wishing and hoping aren't enough. Last I heard XP was 60% of Firefox base, and if you assume they are older machines, it makes sense that they also have an incentive to use the fastest browsers to wring the most out of their machines. If all they do is browse then it makes much better financial sense, and the alternative browser probably clears up a bunch of security problems too.
2. IE isn't the default browser in Europe, which is a market that's bigger that the U.S. New users get prompted to choose from a short list, which includes Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera. In many other countries IE isn't as dominant due to language or cultural issues. In the UK and US which are traditionally strong for IE, Safari on Mac is also strong which makes up for weaker showings by Firefox and Chrome and that's a growing and influential market that Microsoft has conceded entirely. Only China and South Korea are really IE strongholds and South Korea now has something like 15% Android thanks to an explosion of mobile browsing and being the home country of Samsung and LG (mobile being another growing and influential market that Microsoft seems totally out of the running for).
3. If people really are that lazy then a) it prevents them upgrading XP, b) it prevents them switching back to IE if previously switched to (the auto-updating) Chrome and Firefox, and similarly switching from Android and iPhone in mobile..
While true if you look at current hardware numbers, I think your statement is misleading and incorrect. More people today purchased a computer running a Google OS than a Microsoft OS. I know that Windows is "the world's most popular operating system" by total installation numbers, but it is not the most purchased today.
I'm not sure what is, but I'd bet Android is "the world's most popular operating system" if you measure it by today's sales.
Sources: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive... https://twitter.com/#!/Arubin/status/85660213478309888
More people today purchased a computer running a Google OS than a Microsoft OS.
Isn't backed up by your source, there's a lot of hand waving going on there.
Also remember that phones have a much shorter life cycle than computers.
Edit: And remember that safari isn't on those graphs, you're talking about computers and smart phones, the article doesn't seem to be.
I think we'd all admit it's getting better, but it's still years behind firefox and chrome where it matters. The IE release cycle is also so slow that it makes it even more outdated. IE still can in no way be considered a 'modern browser'.
Stats from a fairly popular webapp: Firefox=47.4%, Chrome=30.9%, IE=12.6%, Safari=3.3%, Opera=1.8%
So for me the question is when IE will drop below safari and opera...
IE9 is acceptable and IE10 is surprisingly good. I have a feeling the IE team is targeting WebKit as their competition and not FF.
I haven't liked IE best since IE5, long time Firefox user from Phoenix 0.4, but I'd really suggest trying out IE10, it's pretty much on par with FF4 stock from everything I've seen. I still really don't like that it doesnt handle tab closing properly (IE10), but I see that FF5 finally handles tab closing half way decently. Tab handling and the 'awesome bar' or whatever the Chrome team calls it were the biggest drivers of me switching to Chrome. Also, IE10 now has a single URL/search bar which is a vast improvement and puts it on par.
Google is strong, Apple is strong, Mozilla is (sorta) strong. I don't think we have to fear a world in which Internet Explorer is a great browser, not as much as in the nineties, anyway.
A world in which Internet Explorer kinda makes progress but not as fast as other browsers (which is in my opinion the world we are living in) is quite different, I think. Internet Explorer can't win in such a world but it can slow down progress (compared to it not existing at all or compared to an Internet Explorer that is on par with, say, Webkit). I still think that such a world is preferable to being stuck on IE6 forever.
And I'm hearing good things about IE10, so maybe we get to live in a world in which Internet Explorer is indistinguishable from Chrome.