Microsoft Edge is getting a killer feature that could tempt workers away from Google Chrome

Is Microsoft Edge becoming the browser of work?

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Microsofthas detailed an expansion for its flagshipweb browserthat may go some way to solving common headaches faced by professionals.

As announced at Microsoft Ignite 2022,Microsoft Edgewill soon benefit from a new feature called Workspaces, described as “a set of browser tabs that will allow groups to view the same websites and working files in one place”.

Now available in preview, the feature is designed to eliminate issues associated with collaborating on complex projects, by giving teams shared canvases on which to collect the necessary web-based resources.

The browser of work?

Since Microsoft Edge was rebooted in early 2020, it has struggled to achieve the kind of market penetration that Microsoft might have hoped for.

Thelatest datafrom Statcounter shows that, although Edge has overtaken established alternatives like Mozilla Firefox, it still lags a long way behind the likes ofGoogleChrome andSafariin terms of market share.

Beyond delivering a regular cadence of feature updates, Microsoft has employed a number of less traditional tactics to help accelerate the growth of Edge, but not all have proven popular with users.

For instance, the company was recentlyforced to walk back a policythat added an unreasonable amount of friction to the process of changing the default browser after users made their displeasure known.

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Microsoft alsocame under firefor efforts to block links opened via its own services (e.g.Windows 11widgets, the Start Menu etc.) from launching in any other browser but Edge, another tactic that drew criticism from the community.

However, the company may have more success with its plans to introduce new business-oriented features to the web browser.

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Microsoft already has a monopoly in the business market from a devices perspective, with Windows-basedbusiness laptopsandcomputers(most of which come with Edge preinstalled) the preferred choice of the vast majority of organizations.

If Microsoft is able to convince professionals that Edge is a proposition genuinely worth considering, then, it has the potential to capture many millions of additional users. And by addressing common hybrid working pain-points for employees, features like Workspaces could go some way to achieving that objective.

Ultimately, if Microsoft Edge is going to compete head-to-head with the likes of Chrome, it will need to stake a claim to a particular niche or use case. In the business market, perhaps it has found one.

Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.

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