From a profit viewpoint, why should Microsoft support Edge?
EDIT: I should preface this message by saying that everything here is purely speculative, and is the result of, probably, 15 minutes of searching. I do not know what reasons Microsoft had for creating the original Microsoft Edge or this new version, and I do not know if Bing is important to Edge's success. Please don't think of any of these theories as facts. END OF EDIT. I think we can mostly agree that Microsoft Edge is, or at least will be, pretty great. It has collections, a music control thing, a development team that actively listens to user input, a nice looking NTP, and way more coming "soon". However, a big question started bothering me this afternoon: Why is Microsoft developing a Chromium Web Browser? Well, let's look back at where this all began: Project Spartan. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/03/30/introducing-project-spartan-the-new-browser-built-for-windows-10/ Spartan was meant to be way more user-friendly, faster, and less power hungry than Chrome. It was supposed to do to Chrome what Chrome had done to Internet Explorer and Firefox. But more than that: Spartan's tagline was The New Browser Built for Windows 10. If you wanted to use the best new browser, you had to have a Windows machine. Furthermore, if you wanted to use some of Edge's best new features, like Inking on Web Pages, you would need a pen, and essentially, if you needed a pen, you needed a Microsoft Surface Tablet. So from my best guess, Microsoft saw that the web browser had become the most important piece of software and wanted to create a browser that would make their hardware sell like hotcakes. https://youtu.be/q4rL_Lnt6kA Obviously, that didn't happen. So, at the tail end of 2018, Microsoft announced that Spartan Edge would be replaced by Chromium Edge. This was so exciting; now Edge would be just as fast and stable as Chrome, but with a plethora of new Microsoft tools and UI enhancements! I'm really loving the new Microsoft Edge for exactly those reasons, but there's a problem: "from a profit standpoint, why should Microsoft support Edge?" Edge runs on Windows 7, 8.1 and Mac just as well as it runs on Windows 10. Furthermore, Edge inherited a lot of Chrome's clunky mouse / keyboard based UI, so it isn't a shining example of the Surface hardware or the Fluent UI software. If Edge isn't a tool to market Windows, and Edge can't generate profits on its own, then why is Microsoft spending so many resources on this project? Maybe we can look at the new marketing page for Edge: Oh no. Bing is supposedly one of the main reasons to download Edge. In fact, it gets its own page! Bing definitely generates revenue for Microsoft through the incorporation of advertising, but relying on Bing to fund Edge raises two really big alarms for me: First off, Bing is to Google Search what Spartan Edge was to Chrome. Sure, both Bing and Google work, but most people use Google. Second, Edge can't force users to search with Bing. Bing is a website, the same as Google.com. It's really easy to get to Google.com in Microsoft Edge. Maybe this is why Edge made it super difficult to change search providers? Seriously, "default search provider" is the very last option in Privacy and Services. The only way to hide it better would be to put it "in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard." - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy This partnership with Bing is strenuous at best, and the perceived reliance on Bing's revenue seems ill-fated. Regardless of how popular Edge becomes in two years, what will happen to it? In two years, how big will Edge's development team be? In two years, will the development team be able to pump out features like they have in 2019? I really want to see Edge achieve, and maintain, a status as one of the most innovative and well-designed web browsers available. As much as I am afraid to kick this beehive, the importance of the topic feels too great to let slide. Hopefully, someone can provide an answer.
