Only a few days before the release of the new Windows Vista operating system on the 30th of January, Microsoft announced on its own blog that Internet Explorer 7 or IE7 has just reached its 100 millionth download and installation last January 8 – this according to Group Program Manager Tony Chor. Yet still Mozilla Firefox continues to bite a big chunk out of IE7’s market share. Apparently, IE7 only took market share from the earlier IE6.

In fact, last December, combined market share of both Microsoft browsers dropped 1% from November to 79.6%. Mozilla Firefox’s market share grew by 13.5 to 14% for the same period. With Web 2.0 applications becoming more and more important, Microsoft needs to do everything it can to stop the dwindling of its market share or else face more bad news.