The story of Internet Explorer began with a small team and a licensing deal, quickly evolving into a dominant force that reshaped the early web landscape.
A Six-Person Scramble
In the summer of 1994, Microsoft engineer Thomas Reardon initiated an internal project to build the company's first graphical web browser. Lacking an in-house browser engine at the time, Microsoft sought existing commercial technology to catch up with the rapid growth of the World Wide Web. In late 1994, the company negotiated a licensing agreement for the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, a browser built on code loosely derived from the pioneering NCSA Mosaic software. Under the contract terms, Microsoft agreed to pay Spyglass a quarterly fee alongside a percentage of non-Windows software revenues. Work began with a remarkably small footprint: the initial Internet Explorer development team comprised roughly six people. This small group assembled the first release, which launched in 1995 as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit bundled into the Plus! pack for Windows 95.
Legal Battles and Financial Escalation
The financial structure of the Spyglass deal soon created serious legal friction. Because Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer free of charge within operating system add-ons and service updates rather than selling it as a standalone non-Windows product, Spyglass received no percentage-based royalties under the contract terms. The dispute escalated into a formal lawsuit over unpaid royalties, which Microsoft resolved on January 22, 1997, by agreeing to an $8 million settlement. Despite the legal complications, Microsoft rapidly escalated its financial commitment to web development throughout the late 1990s. The company spent over $100 million per year on Internet Explorer, expanding the engineering team from its original six members to more than 1,000 people by 1999.
Engine Upgrades and Market Dominance
To replace the early licensed code and construct an architecture capable of supporting modern web standards, Microsoft developed its own core browser engine. In September 1997, the company released Internet Explorer 4, introducing the newly built Trident web rendering engine. Trident gave Microsoft an in-house technical foundation to implement emerging standards alongside proprietary document extensions. Combined with Microsoft's aggressive strategy of bundling the browser directly into the Windows operating system, the new engine allowed Internet Explorer to outpace its main competitor, Netscape. This deep OS integration strategy proved effective, propelling Internet Explorer from an optional add-on to a peak global usage share of 95 percent by 2003.
The Legacy Engine in Edge
Over the following two decades, market dynamics shifted with the emergence of alternative browsers and mobile platforms. Microsoft eventually retired the legacy application, officially ending support for Internet Explorer 11 for main Windows 10 users on June 15, 2022, as it redirected focus toward Microsoft Edge. Nevertheless, the technical architecture built during the browser's early expansion has outlasted the standalone application. The underlying Trident rendering engine remains supported inside Microsoft Edge's built-in IE Mode until at least 2029. This embedded continuity allows legacy enterprise web software constructed during Internet Explorer's peak years to remain functional across modern operating systems decades later.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
Source: Internet Explorer
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