Microsoft Edge will soon benefit from a new feature called Workspaces
Microsoft has disclosed an upgrade for its main web browser that may go some way toward easing the typical difficulties experienced by professionals. Microsoft’s announcement was made earlier today. Workspaces, a new feature that was introduced at Microsoft Ignite 2022, will soon be available as part of the Microsoft Edge web browser. Workspaces are described as “a series of browser tabs that will allow groups to access the same websites and working files in one area.” This new idea, which is now available for preview, is meant to make it easier for teams to work together on complicated projects by giving them shared canvases where they can put together the necessary web-based materials.
Since it was relaunched in the early part of 2020, the Microsoft Edge web browser has had trouble achieving the kind of market penetration that Microsoft had hoped it would achieve. The most recent information from Statcounter demonstrates that, despite the fact that Microsoft Edge has surpassed more conventional options such as Mozilla Firefox, it is still a significant distance behind browsers such as Google Chrome and Safari in terms of market share. Microsoft has utilized a number of less traditional strategies in order to assist in accelerating the expansion of Edge in addition to delivering a regular cadence of feature upgrades. However, not all of these strategies have been well received by consumers.
For example, the company was recently forced to walk back a policy that added an unacceptable amount of burden to the process of changing the default browser. Users made their discontent known, and as a result, the company was compelled to back down. Another strategy that received criticism from the community was Microsoft’s efforts to prevent links that were opened via any of its own services (such as Windows 11 widgets, the Start Menu, etc.) from launching in any browser other than Edge. These efforts drew criticism from the community as well.
The company’s intentions, on the other hand, to add new functions to the web browser that are geared toward business may be more likely to be realized successfully. Microsoft already has a monopoly in the business market from the perspective of devices, as the vast majority of companies prefer to use Windows-based business laptops and computers (the majority of which come with Edge preinstalled). This gives Microsoft a competitive advantage in the business market.
If Microsoft is successful in persuading industry professionals that Edge is an offer that is truly worth considering, then the company has the opportunity to win over many millions of extra users. And by addressing the typical hybrid working pain points that employees experience, innovations like Workspaces could go some way toward achieving that purpose. In the end, in order for Microsoft Edge to be able to fight head-to-head with browsers like Chrome, it will need to establish a claim to a certain market segment or application scenario. Perhaps it has located in the commercial real estate market.