While Microsoft spent the best part of 2008 releasing test versions of its IE8 browser - the first beta was in March - its competitors have been streaking ahead.

In fact, in the time that Microsoft has taken to iron out last-minute problems in IE8 and finish its testing, there are even more browser competitors in the market.

Google, for example, released its Chrome browser as a beta version in early September and just three months later released version 1.0 of the browser. Sure, Chrome doesn’t have half the features that IE8 does, or even Firefox 3, but that hasn’t harmed it. According to NetApplications, Chrome already had close to 1% share of the browser market by November and with version 1.0 being released in December that number is expected to climb even higher.

Firefox, in comparison, topped 20% market share for the first time in November 2008. That’s up from around 16% in January of 2008. Similarly, Apple’s Safari browser is up from 5% in January 2008 to more than 7% in November.

Internet Explorer’s market share has dropped from 75% at the start of 2008 to 69% on November. Which is not an encouraging trend for Microsoft.

When Internet Explorer 8 is finally released in early 2009, no doubt there will be a spike in users who, because they are prompted to update their versions, will switch to the newer browser. And most will be happy with what is essentially the best browser Microsoft has released to date.

But if the company delays the final release too much longer it could be looking at a completely different browser landscape in which it will have much more competition that ever before.