Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has considered moving Internet Explorer’s core over to the open source WebKit rendering engine.

It appers the move is being considered as a way to stem the bleeding of users to other web browsers, who are looking for more complete and compliant web browsers.

Market Share by Net Applications shows that for October, IE’s market share has dropped to 71%.

With IE8 set for release in early 2009, changes of this magnitude would likely not be seen for another 2 years, in what could possible be IE9.

This move, if true, would be fantastic news for users and web developers everywhere.

With all the news that Google Chrome’s market share has droped since it’s release, I thought it was only fitting to add some more statistics to the fire.

On another technology site that I run, browser stats were as follows for the month of September:

Browser Market Share for September

Through the month of September, Chrome’s usage has dropped around 30% from its release. Usage seems to have stabalised since then.

Of interesting note, is that Google Chrome has still gained a larger market share than Opera. It should also be noted that Chrome is still only available on Windows. Perhaps it’s market share will again increase when offical Mac and Linux versions are released.

Perhaps Google Chrome hasn’t shaken up the market as much as everyone predicted. Did you try Google Chrome and are you still using it?