UPDATE: Microsoft Continues To Lose Browser Share To Google [Dow Jones]

Excerpts from a snapshot of another front in the Google/Microsoft competitive scene follow below.  Google’s assorted services (e.g., Gmail, Google Reader, and Google+) are optimized to work best in Chrome, and Google is unlikely to implode as Netscape did, so Microsoft IE faces several strategic challenges, especially considering the relative mobile device momentum levels of Android and Windows Phone.  Meanwhile, Mozilla is apparently doing its best to alienate corporate Firefox users.

According to NetApplications.com, which tracks Web usage, Internet Explorer's share was 54% in June, down from 60% a year ago and about flat from May. Another data tracker, StatCounter, had Internet Explorer at just 44% in June, down from 53% a year ago and about flat from May.

Most of Microsoft's recent decline appears due to Chrome, which has seen its usage basically double over the past year. Google, long dominant in the Internet-search engine market, originally built Chrome in part because of concerns that existing browsers would fail to support its Web services or steer users away from its search engine.

According to NetApplications.com, Chrome's June 2011 share was 13%, up from 7.2% a year earlier and a slight gain from May; StatCounter, meanwhile, says Chrome has 21% of the browser market share, up from 9.2% a year ago, 19% in May and 2.8% in June 2009.

UPDATE: Microsoft Continues To Lose Browser Share To Google