According to data from StatCounter, Internet Explorer has dipped below the 50%-mark in its global share of the Internet browser market.

StatCounter shows IE at 51.34% of the market in August 2010; by the end of September, IE was holding on to just 49.87% of the browser market. The browser also shows a drop of nearly 10% year over year.

This is the first time IE has fallen below the halfway point in market share, and from where we sit, the glass is looking half empty.

These losses come in the face of steady growth from Firefox () over the past several years and speedy gains by Chrome () in recent months.

During the same month that IE sank to its all-time low, Firefox grew by about half a percent to 31.5%, while Chrome added almost a full percentage point to its share of the market.

Microsoft’s latest version of the browser, Internet Explorer 9, handily addresses common issues with the IE experience, including speed and compliance with web standards — issues that caused the browser to lose users in the first place. But although IE9’s advances may not be “too little,” they’re definitely “too late” to the browser war that’s been waging around the globe for years.

Internet Explorer () has been on the decline at least since Firefox’s launch in 2004; the browser’s first real answer to its smaller, more agile (as companies) competitors didn’t come until six years later. The speed and standards compliance should have come a long time ago, when consumers first began to realize that Firefox could outperform IE on every front. We’re duly impressed with IE9’s improvements, but they may constitute a Hail Mary hurled out at the end of a losing game.

What do you think: Can Microsoft turn this boat around and bring its browser into a state of recovery and recuperation? Or is Internet Explorer in all its versions, good, bad and ugly, down for the count?