Thursday, 26 October 2006

IE7 Downloaded Three Million Times in Four Days

Microsoft has revealed that Internet Explorer 7 has been downloaded three million times in the first four days. Early next month, customers will begin receiving IE7 automatically, at which time adoption numbers will escalate as per sources.

Microsoft has bought up radio spots and employed mobile billboards in ten cities across the United States. The new browser brings added security, tabbed browsing and built-in RSS support, and is currently available for Windows XP SP2. "Of course, we’re not done with IE7 yet. Next up are the localised versions of IE7 for Windows XP and, of course, IE7 in Windows Vista," said Tony Chor, IE7 group program manager.

Microsoft's servers are buckling under the number of downloads and new installations of IE 7. As a result, some people who install it get an error when viewing the IE 7 start page after firing up the browser for the first time.

A Microsoft representative said, "We're seeing such an incredible response to IE 7, that the 'runonce' page is being overloaded at times. Microsoft is currently adding server capacity. We expect the majority of people who are downloading IE 7 to have a good experience but will continue to monitor and adjust our capacity as needed."