I don’t think that’s the case. Taking the data at face value it’s even doubtful whether the browser ballot had any effect at all.
StatCounter shows a pretty steady decline of IE since July 2008 (that’s when their data starts), down to about 45% in March 2010 (that’s the month when the browser ballot came with a Windows update) from about 58% (that’s about 0.6% per month). Since March IE has lost 7.8 points (that’s about 0.8% per month). All that loss since March was at the expense of Chrome (Firefox and other browsers could merely hold their March level).
That decline was a bit more rapid than the past average, but that extended decline is nothing special and also not particularly steep (there have been eleven month of near constant decline between August 2008 and June 2009 at an average rate of about 1.1% per month).
Firefox had more than 36% of the browser share since December 2008. The browser ballot doesn’t seem to have helped it so at least Firefox is in the position it is without any help from the EU. Chrome might have been helped by the ballot but even that is doubtful. North America which didn’t get a browser ballot shows a similar rise of Chrome.
A superficial reading of the data doesn’t show any effects of the browser ballot. You might be able to tease effects out with more analysis but I would bet that those are miniscule.
StatCounter shows a pretty steady decline of IE since July 2008 (that’s when their data starts), down to about 45% in March 2010 (that’s the month when the browser ballot came with a Windows update) from about 58% (that’s about 0.6% per month). Since March IE has lost 7.8 points (that’s about 0.8% per month). All that loss since March was at the expense of Chrome (Firefox and other browsers could merely hold their March level).
That decline was a bit more rapid than the past average, but that extended decline is nothing special and also not particularly steep (there have been eleven month of near constant decline between August 2008 and June 2009 at an average rate of about 1.1% per month).
Firefox had more than 36% of the browser share since December 2008. The browser ballot doesn’t seem to have helped it so at least Firefox is in the position it is without any help from the EU. Chrome might have been helped by the ballot but even that is doubtful. North America which didn’t get a browser ballot shows a similar rise of Chrome.
A superficial reading of the data doesn’t show any effects of the browser ballot. You might be able to tease effects out with more analysis but I would bet that those are miniscule.