18 month ago is a full development cylce.

Since then, Netscape 7 and I.E. 6 have come out.

Netscape 7 uses profiles per user - very nice - and can be set up to use any remote directory for the location of email, cookies and bookmarks, so it is very easy to set up a roaming profile using Windows or *nix (I do not know enough about Mac to venture a comment on that 2% market share).

NS has seen market share growth, too... to about 7% from less than 5% earlier this year. Tabbed browsing, their latest feature, is more convenient than opening new windows, IMO. They have revamped the interface, too.

IE 6 has, really no front end new features - except that it removes the MSJava distribution, one of the few places Microsoft has decided no longer to compete. And under XP, one can now hide IE, although the HTML rendering engine stays on the system if you do what MS says to "remove" IE in favor of another browser - and some pop-ups will even bring up an IE window, even if you use NS and have it configured as your primary browser.

Until MS can fully document a COM interface for a browser engine, and detail it, and NS makes their interface to conform, the Windows world will be stuck with IE, with NS being an addition. And any CIO knows that if you're stuck using one tool for something anyway, there is no reason to add a redundant tool, even if it is better, because of the increased help center load to support the multiple tools.

And that, not any technical consideration, is the real-world reason IE won the browser war and continues to dominate.