Why Browser Dominance Matters
You could easily dismiss web browsers as playful software and prestigious products that are used as placebos for a company's success. But you'd be mistaken.
There are plenty of good reasons why Google is going after browser market share aggressively, why Mozilla is stepping up and following Google and there are good reasons to believe that Microsoft's IE may be caught between the wheels and endanger Microsoft's future product strategy. In fact, the underlying technology in Chrome will be critical to Google's success and IE's technology and reach will largely define Microsoft's product plans and flexibility in the next decade.
I will use a very recent example to make my point. Google recently unlocked its SPDY HTTP replacements and extensions, which now works in any available version of Chrome as well as all Google properties (I am not aware of any other sites, even if Google offers the code for free and said that it will open source it). It is essentially a way to reduce the latency that is built into HTTP and slow down the page loading time. It batches server requests and allows a server to act without having to wait for a client request. The effect are dramatically increased page load times on sites such as Gmail, Google Docs or even Adsense. You can try the feature by comparing Chrome to IE and Firefox and viewing the SPDY connections via chrome://net-internals (URL bar request).
While the feature will be made available to other browser makers, it showcases the power of fast-paced innovation and how a browser can take advantage of conceivably proprietary technology to accelerate websites - and services. The browser really isn't what we generally perceive it to be. It is not a primary application to navigate the web. It is merely an interface and toolkit that will act as an operating system to run applications and services. Imagine this: If Chrome is able to run cloud services much faster than IE, and if Google's service are fine-tuned to this capability, would you use IE? And, if that is the case, would you use Microsoft's cloud services, if Google Docs is comparable in its core feature set, but magnitudes faster than Office 365?
Google is not really hiding the fact that Chrome is an operating system. Chrome OS is virtually indistinguishable from Chrome for the user and there is little doubt that Google will be driving Chrome much deeper in the consumer space. For Google, the cloud strategy heavily depends on the reach and capability of Chrome. If Chrome can continue to gain market reach and market share, it will be easier for Google to establish itself next to Microsoft in highly profitable cloud services - especially in the productivity software segment.
Mozilla has an entirely different motivation. Market share and usage share directly translates into ad revenue and user revenue (sourced mainly from Google.) Mozilla will have a growing platform problem as the browser transition from a primary app to just an app on some devices and into a cloud OS surface for other devices. Mozilla does not have the platform it needs to build Firefox into an OS-like environment and may increasingly be seen as an alternative to IE and Chrome. However, Firefox is making the right move to develop Firefox on a faster pace, at least as far as perception is concerned, and keep the software fresh.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is giving confusing signals and I am not sure if Microsoft is developing a major strike in the background or if it is sitting on its laurels of IE9 - which would mean that IE10 won't be here before March 2013. It is clear that IE9 means a lot to Microsoft and its hardware acceleration engine has not been built just because Microsoft wanted to be nice to you and me. If Microsoft was smart, the engine is tied to Microsoft's upcoming cloud services, such as Office 365 as well as its Windows 8 App Store. It is an engine that is designed to run demanding and highly complex apps within your browser.
However, Microsoft made the decision to only support Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7, which jeopardizes its overall market opportunity. The company's future depends on Windows XP - Windows 7 transitions more than we may be able to understand right now as the company moves more and more into a service and cloud model as well. IE7 and IE8 are virtually useless as cloud interfaces and IE9 is the key to success for Microsoft. Perhaps that is the reason that Microsoft highlighted the usage share of IE9 on Windows 7 - as this is what really counts for the company - and not the usage share on Windows XP or Vista. I remain cautious on IE9's overall opportunity, but from a software perspective, Microsoft cannot afford IE9 to fail.
The platform game makes the browser an incredibly valuable element in the strategies of Microsoft and Google. Google is rumored to have given the new Chrome chief up to $30 - $50 billion as incentive to develop Chrome into a major force. If you think about the possible reward and Google's opportunity, that could be a reasonable investment. In the end, if you own the browser, and play a clever game, you will own the cloud.
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IE9 wont save microsoft, especially since most people have locked in their heads that IE is a bad browser. Im still not happy with it since it still crashes when opening a tab. Chrome is probably the most stable, and is headed in the right direction. FF is also going on well.
microsoft has been stupid with their moves against the remaining XP users, and their strategies suck.
Nope. Microsoft released the first IE10 Platform Preview today. Unfortunately for some, the preview only runs on Windows 7. Looks like they're speeding up the development cycle just like Mozilla, however.
If the slowest of the major web browsers is still acceptable performance wise then its about everything other than performance. I firmly believe now that IE8 has been replaced by IE9 we are now at a point where features and compatibility matter more than performance.
The unanswered question is: Why does Microsoft continue to develop a web browser from the ground up?
Why didn't Microsoft do what Google did. Take WebKit as a base, put a Microsoft interface on top, call it Internet Explorer 10, and save tens of billions of dollars in development?
But, unfortunately, Microsoft is resting on its laurels, as it always does. Mobile is where the action is, and mobile browser usage will exceed desktop browser usage. Mobile is everything. Yet Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 still runs the old IE7 mobile browser, which, like the story said, is useless as a cloud interface.
I use netscape
FF because it has cool add-ons and such.
I use netscape
I thoroughly enjoyed this comment. It gave me a fantastic chuckle.
+1
"The effect are dramatically increased page load times on sites such as Gmail, Google Docs or even Adsense."
This didn't make any sense to me at all lol. Why announce increased load times as a "feature" of something? lol
So I went and read the original article and it should say "increased page load performance". lol
The ironic fact that you forced me once again to use Firefox to post a comment on your site is rather pathetic. My visits at TH is limited cause I keep forgetting after LONG posts that when I press the SUBMIT MY COMMENT button the website of yours doesnt work with IE9. Its amazing that only TH has issues with the browser of my daily choise...
For a website targeted mostly torwards hardcore PC users one would expect no such issues. And a basic one thats been there for months and months now. Noone at TH cares enough to fix this shit? Seriously...
IE9 wont save microsoft, especially since most people have locked in their heads that IE is a bad browser. Im still not happy with it since it still crashes when opening a tab. Chrome is probably the most stable, and is headed in the right direction. FF is also going on well. microsoft has been stupid with their moves against the remaining XP users, and their strategies suck.
Weird i use IE9 since beta and i haven't ever seen this crash. btw xp is dead its not ms's fault they still use a piece of software thats well beyond its years. and should have been shutdown long ago. But then again i never saw any of the issues others did with vista or 7 which i use both of. Same crap different OS i remember when XP came out and people tried to make 98 live forever to. Likely the same people that try and keep XP alive now.
I don't get it. How does slowing of web page loads is actually a feature? Please somebody enlighten me.
Any clue about Mozilla's plans?
used firefox since v .4
a great browser, tons of customizing.
No reason to use anything else (although i do have Chrome and Opera)
So is Google really the new Microsoft? Proprietary HTTP sounds an awful lot like proprietary ActiveX... Expect EU to sue Google over this in a few years (if they take the browser lead that is).
Microsoft is not sitting around. Maybe if you guys at toms would pay attention to what is going on in browsers you'd have better insights than your recent articles.
The first IE 10 platform preview is already available: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive [...] nload.aspx
Also, Mozilla just merged mozilla-central with aurora (to you ignorant tomshardware staff: that means Firefox 5 is now in stabilization phase).
Mozilla's motivation absolutely is not revenue. Mozilla is a global non-profit whose mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web. We are the "honest brokers" in this to make the Web better, not to lock people into our stack of Web applications or any other revenue model.
I thoroughly enjoyed this comment. It gave me a fantastic chuckle. +1
I use lynx
So is Google really the new Microsoft? Proprietary HTTP sounds an awful lot like proprietary ActiveX... Expect EU to sue Google over this in a few years (if they take the browser lead that is).
Incomparable! MS has always developed incompatible and proprietary extensions just to switch other competitors out. In comparison Google has pushed lots of technologies as open source and new standards.
For now google isn't behaving like an evil company. They support multiple platforms unlike MS who only push Windows.
Mozilla's motivation absolutely is not revenue. Mozilla is a global non-profit whose mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web. We are the "honest brokers" in this to make the Web better, not to lock people into our stack of Web applications or any other revenue model.
How do they finance the development? It must be extremely expensive. Back then in just a couple of years Netscape's value jumped from 0 to over 2 billion.
So is Google really the new Microsoft? Proprietary HTTP sounds an awful lot like proprietary ActiveX... Expect EU to sue Google over this in a few years (if they take the browser lead that is).
Well, the only good thing that MS has done for the internet,they have made the browsers a free software.
Incomparable! MS has always developed incompatible and proprietary extensions just to switch other competitors out. In comparison Google has pushed lots of technologies as open source and new standards.For now google isn't behaving like an evil company. They support multiple platforms unlike MS who only push Windows.
It is comparable to some extend. Yes different, but comparable. MS did it to control the marked. Google is doing what it's doing not to take over the marked but to know everything about you and your life to make more $$$ from ad's. So imho they're trying to take over your life...
Well I'm not interested in google's movement into the cloud idea & I also prefer to use windows XP as my main usefull operating system...
Every move by microsoft seems to want to destroy their ever trustfull XP operating system that has made people happy for years now & it has been around for 10 years also...What will microsoft do next to destroy their ever trustfull operating system,XP...Google will be bringing in their ever so popular chrome browser as an operating system & we will see how microslft acts then...One thing remains to be seen & that is will goolge's chrome still be popular when this cloud ideas start to apprear...
Will the people whining about users still running please grow up. MS is still allowing new Netbooks to be shipped and sold with XP. For them to do this while turning their backs to owners of systems running XP is scandalous. Thank goodness for Mozilla, Opera and Google for stepping up to the mark in the absence of a decent MS browser for the biggest MS operating system.
XP isn't the biggest MS operating system
and yeah if you want to use 10 year old tech expect 10 year old capability. same thing happened to 98 users that held onto their aged OS for no reason i can think of that was worth mentioning. Yes MS is trying to kill off XP like all of its last century software including IE6 people just hold on to this garbage for some reason. Business's exempt of course since migration for them can be billions in investment.
"It is essentially a way to reduce the latency that is built into HTTP and slow***[s]*** down the page loading time. It batches server requests and allows a server to act without having to wait for a client request. The effect are dramatically ***[de]***creased page load times on sites such as Gmail, Google Docs or even Adsense."
Let's get some proof reading going here Wolfgang.
The unanswered question is: Why does Microsoft continue to develop a web browser from the ground up?Why didn't Microsoft do what Google did. Take WebKit as a base, put a Microsoft interface on top, call it Internet Explorer 10, and save tens of billions of dollars in development?But, unfortunately, Microsoft is resting on its laurels, as it always does. Mobile is where the action is, and mobile browser usage will exceed desktop browser usage. Mobile is everything. Yet Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 still runs the old IE7 mobile browser, which, like the story said, is useless as a cloud interface.
Why on earth would Microsoft take something written by APPLE and use it as the backbone to a core product? That would be like Ford using GM engines in their cars. While using webkit may work for google, it would be sensless for MS to use it.
@Zingam
"How do they finance the development? It must be extremely expensive......"
Mozilla is funded by charitable donations from individuals and companies, as highlighted when they asked for help to pay for the two page ad in the NY times
Firefox uses crowd-sourcing as a primary development tool, the majority of it done gratis free, they do have a few pay-rolled employees that vet, validate and integrate codes as well as a few admin folks, they also reward those that catch important bugs or submit worthwhile features
with cloud services as the next big thing, google and microsoft are actively competing to be the dominant players, positioning their respective browsers as the major connecting tools. maybe oracle and ibm should join in the fray and support one of the other browsers like firefox or opera.
Microsoft understands that it gained control of the Operating System because it controlled applications. It controlled applications because it controlled application development. The is why it is working on Silverlight as an application development platform -- and that is why it is getting its nearest competitor killed -- Flash. If it controls the development environment, it can gain control of the browser. This is analogous to Micorosoft in the early days, when it did not dominate the market, but was willing to lag and strategically kill competition.
I use netscape
I wanted to make a clever reply but my compuserve dial-up isn't as fast as it used to be