Microsoft - Do this to gain market share from Google Chrome

Eternal_Optimist  "Microsoft had it's chance with legacy and continuity when it first introduced Microsoft Edge. ... If you're that committed to trying to recapture the market share Microsoft has lost over the years you're going to need to start with a clean slate."

You're right.

(1) Microsoft needs to bring Edge Chromium out from under the disastrous legacy of Internet Explorer, a browser that dropped from 60% market share a decade ago to under 10% at present, retaining the 10% only because enterprise customers still use it. Consumers don't and for good reason.

Edge (Classic) gained little traction in terms of market share, I suspect, because users saw Edge (Classic) as an (somewhat) improved release of IE, rather than a different browser with remarkable functionality.

I suspect that Microsoft's wisest marketing choice would be to cut the cord and brand Edge Chromium as a brand new browser, neither Internet Explorer not Edge (Classic) nor Chrome. I think that it Microsoft had done that, rather than branding Edge (Classic) as an IE replacement, Chrome might not have gained an additional 10% market share since Edge (Classic) was introduced in 2016.

If Microsoft is determined to keep the Edge brand, so be it, but then Microsoft needs to do what Firefox did when it released Firefox Quantum -- it marketed the rewritten browser as brand new, and marketed it under the Firefox Quantum brand, suggesting that the new browser was a quantum leap from the old.

(2) Branding is important, but it isn't everything. Microsoft needs to make Edge Chromium a significantly better browser than Chrome, in do so in a way that catches consumer's attention and offers them a compelling reason to switch from Chrome. I don't know what that compelling reason might be, but my guess is that market researchers could give Microsoft a strong hint.

Microsoft is not asking consumers to just switch their computer browser from Chrome to Edge Chromium. At a bare minimum, it is asking consumers to switch browsers both on their computers and on their Android devices. And more realistically, Microsoft is asking consumers to pull out of the Google ecosystem (Google sync, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Cloud, et al) and move over to the Microsoft ecosystem.

That is going to be a jump for folks tied into Chrome in the world of interconnected devices. Folks like that -- 65% of the computer browser market currently and a higher percentage of the Android market -- are going to need a compelling reason to make the switch.