Five ways Microsoft can halt Internet Explorer's slow death

The bad news for Microsoft: Internet Explorer market share just dropped again, to the lowest point ever, at 63.6%. The good news: There are things it can do to stop the slow bleeding. Here are five ways Microsoft can save Internet Explorer, including the unthinkable: releasing it as open source.

Add-on, add-ons, add-ons

In an infamous moment captured several years ago on video, Steve Ballmer danced around the stage like an insane asylum escapee on crystal meth, screaming "developers, developers, developers!" Well, "add-ons, add-ons, add-ons!" needs to be the mantra for IE. There are thousands of Firefox add-ons that do everything you can imagine in a browser and more. There's barely anything available for IE. Microsoft isn't just fighting Firefox, it's fighting the collective creativity of thousands of developers. For IE to hold its own, Microsoft needs to develop an add-in architecture, and get developers to write for it.

Make it faster

I know that Microsoft claims that in tests that IE is faster than the competition. All browser makers claim that. But I've used and reviewed all the major browsers, and personal experience tells me that it's slower than Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. It's this simple: To keep up, IE need to be faster.

Kill Web Slices and Accelerators --- or make them useful

Built in to IE are two very nifty features, Web Slices and Accelerators, that are innovative and potentially quite useful. Web slices deliver Web content from multiple Web pages to your browser without you taking action, and Accelerators are a kind of mini-mashup on steroids.

They both have a great deal of potential. The problem is that they remain only potentially useful. They require that Web sites and developers write to them, and so far, developers and sites simply don't do it. At this point, the features are pretty much useless. Microsoft should either get people to write for them, or kill the features. It does the company's credibility no good to announce new features with a big bang, and then let them twist slowly in the wind.

Develop a unique identity

Competing browsers have a simple, clearly definable identity. Think of Firefox, and you think add-ons. Think Chrome and you think speed. Think IE and you think....I'm not really sure. Microsoft needs to figure out what unique identity it wants IE to have, and then to focus single-mindedly on crafting the browser for that purpose. Simply being the browser owned by Microsoft isn't enough anymore.

Make it open source

Yes, I know this sounds crazy...Microsoft release software as open source? But where has keeping IE proprietary gotten Microsoft? Microsoft needs to do something to stop the slow and inexorable decline of IE market share. If Microsoft developers can't figure out ways to juice up the browser and give it new life, perhaps the countless open source developers have ideas on how to improve it.