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Opera, Microsoft, and the Mobile Browser Market

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the web-surfing-on-the-go dept.

DrEspenA writes "Salon has an interesting article on the competition for the mobile phone browser market. Ostensibly the article is about Microsoft's efforts to dominate the market, but the key protagonist is really Opera Software, which may be gaining the (initial) upper hand simply because they are not Microsoft. Good discussion of whether standards and familiarity really is necessary in the mobile browser market."

25 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Mobile browsers? by minghe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dammit. Make the moille screens decent first.

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    ...um...like...a sig...
    1. Re:Mobile browsers? by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually I would suggest a different approach: make websites decent. For goodness's sake, it's not like mobile phone displays can't display text, and isn't that what hyperTEXT is all about? It's not the fault of hardware manufacturers that designers chose to assume that people have a certain screen size. If they hard-code the width of their pages as 800 pixels and their pages read like crap for someone who has less than that, it's the designers' fault, not anyone else's. It's a decission to make, and both ways have their merits and shortcomings.

      Having said that, I don't think most mobile phones are good for web surfing. Reading short messages is ok, but massive amounts of text just do require painful amounts of scrolling on such a small display. Since I like to type, too, I'd rather go for a handheld like those Psion organizers, that have a landscape-oriented display with a fairly decent keyboard under it. If only their hardware wasn't incompatible with everyone else's (save for the styli and batteries) I would buy one (well, money is a concern, too). But that's not a phone, I know.

      Anyway, more power to Opera. They've always delivered a great product, and although there seems to be a strong resistance to closed software from the hackers side, and a strong resistance against anything non-MicroSoft on the non-hacker side, I sincerely hope Opera doesn't go the way BeOS did, but either flourishes commercially or goes open-source before the bell tolls for them.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  2. why no choice? by bluelip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why can't I choose what browser I'd like to use?

    --

    Yep, I never spell check.
    More incorrect spellings can be found he
    1. Re:why no choice? by Mr+Teddy+Bear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you really wanted to hack any of those cell phones then I am sure you could have a choice of any browser you wanted... (even Konqi or Mozilla if you really wanted it) but the fact is that most people don't know or care what browser they use. IE is only used by 98% of the market because it is bundled with windows, not because it is the best. (It may be the best or not, I don't care, but being the best has nothing to do with its success. Being better than crap is all it needed to be)

      At any rate, there needs to be that default browser or else nobody will want to buy it because it is too hard (perceptions count here) for people to set up if they have to select what they want. Why? Because they simply don't know what they want. ;-)

    2. Re:why no choice? by sirsnork · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Storage may very well be cheap.. But in the mobile phone market the battery power to run that storage is perhaps the biggest factor for consumers buying phones.. Yeah you can store 500,000 numbers.. but sorry the battery only last 2 hours

      --

      Normal people worry me!
    3. Re:why no choice? by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Compared to the power used by the transceiver, even in standby, the power consumed by a few additional megabytes of RAM is insignificant. And flash RAM, the most likely option due to it's low cost and non-volatility (and the one mentioned by the poster you responded to), consumes no significant power except when you write or erase.

      Storage isn't a problem.

      --
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  3. Do we really want this? by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Surely all we need is a very simple system that can deal with sending short messages, possibly with links to other short messages.

    I have no desire to read Slashdot through my phone thanks. I need a decent screen. I may want occasional bits and pieces of information, but this will be very short pieces of info like news headlines. Internet cellphones simply try to do far too much, and be far too much like a desktop PC.

    1. Re:Do we really want this? by joebagodonuts · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Reminds me of something

      "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment, 1977

      Today, people are convinced that they need a computer (or more) in their home. You might not want this, but there are companies out there that would like this (a new market) and will try to create a "need" (new revenue stream).

      --
      "Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
  4. Not just anti-Microsoft by Mordac+the+Preventer · · Score: 5, Insightful
    but the key protagonist is really Opera Software, which may be gaining the (initial) upper hand simply because they are not Microsoft.
    You don't think it might be because Opera's browser is more suited to mobiles because it's less bloated?

    --
    SteveB.
    1. Re:Not just anti-Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but the key protagonist is really Opera Software, which may be gaining the (initial) upper hand simply because they are not Microsoft.

      You don't think it might be because Opera's browser is more suited to mobiles because it's less bloated?

      No, I think that "not Microsoft" is a very strong reason for Ericcson, Nokia, etc. to use Opera, even if the Microsoft solution was better.

      As we all know, Microsoft has been very successful in the PC world. They bascially dictate to the PC manufacturers what to do to a huge extent - not just technically, but from a marketing perspective too. If, for instance, Dell wanted to sell a Harry Potter themed PC, Microsoft can say no (and have done). Do you think the mobile phone companies want to be in that situation? Do you think they want their products to become commodities with cut-throat margins upon which Microsoft add software with huge margins and upon which they can dictate the price?

      I'm not saying this because I am an anti-Microsoft zealot, but because I can really see the business sense of the mobile phone companies not having anything to do with Microsoft. This is one of the biggest problems Microsoft currently faces - the market is moving away from PCs to smaller form devices, and the manufacturers don't want anything to do with Microsoft. This is why we will see Microsoft increasingly experimenting with it's own hardware, like the X-Box. Don't be suprised if you find a Microsoft branded mobile phone released sometime in the next couple of years.

    2. Re:Not just anti-Microsoft by rseuhs · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Isn't that the same thing?

      I know that since the Microsoft courtcase everybody - both anti and pro MS people - have portraied Microsoft as an huge amassement of (evil or good) geniuses.

      But let's face it: They are incompetent.

      Microsoft is like some communistic state buerocracy. When the money keeps flowing in and nobodys job is at stake, there is not much incentive to work hard.

      Of course Microsoft, the 40000 man company needs 10 times as long to fix a security bug than a 20-man company. Of course every project Microsoft that was started after the 80's and early 90's (like keyboards, mice, WinCE, MSN, MS Bob, Internet Explorer, PenWindows, Windows on non-x86, Hailstorm, XBox, etc.) was making big losses. Of course they did not innovate anything really new and instead just ripped off concepts from somewhere else (first the basic windowing system from Apple, now more advanced concepts like multiple desktops from the Unix GUI. Also the much-hyped tablet PC is nothing new and already existed and failed in the early 90's)

      Microsoft is very powerful and rich. But they also became lazy, incompetent and slow. Everywhere, where Microsoft can't use their desktop domination to push a product, it is doomed to fail. - Simply because Microsoft is too slow and too expensive to create a competitive product that can survive on it's own. (Just look at XBox. It came out 2 years after Playstation2 (= too late), it features a short-term low numbers design for a long-term, mass produced project (off-the-shelf design where a custom design would fit best =stupid design), they are pumping about 200 million per quarter into it, and it still has fallen behind PS2 and Gamecube. Unlike Sony and Nintendo who have higher development costs and will sell so-and-so many units to break-even, Microosft will never break even. The more the sell, the deeper they get into the red. There is no hope for XBox, Microsoft may keep it alive for a few years until it's livetime is over, but XBox, the platform is doomed and there will be no XBox2. There is no way they can put out a product competing with PS3 at the sime time. First, because they already have choosen a stupid design and second because they are not very competent, especially in the gaming market.)

    3. Re:Not just anti-Microsoft by redfiche · · Score: 2, Insightful
      IMO the best point in the article was that M$ has made PC hardware irrelevant and interchangeable. It's a little more complicated than that, and most /. readers probably don't consider all the video cards on the market interchangeable, but what's the difference, really, between a Dell and a Gateway? Nokia and Erricson and Motorola want to continue to distinguish themselves from one another, and they're afraid if M$ dominates the phone market consumer choice will be about software, not their snazzy hardware.

      Also thought Von Tetzchner has a point with phones being about personal expression and style.

      --

      Brevity is the soul of wit

      -- Polonius

    4. Re:Not just anti-Microsoft by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ``I guess they will (mainly) use the "Microsoft is an evil monopoly"-argument to convince the businness-guys and the other arguments for the tech guys.''
      Or maybe not. My take is that ``Opera is suitable for handheld devices'' is the real argument, and ``Opera is not MicroSoft'' is mainly used to sell the story on /.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  5. Give me speed first! by kitsook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... why would i need a browser when gprs is so expensive and slow?

    1. Re:Give me speed first! by yatest5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ... why would i need a browser when gprs is so expensive and slow?

      Don't put the cart before the horse! Until there is widespread need for the speed there is no encouragement to the networks to invest in their infrasturcture. Take the internet as an example - its been slow and crap for year, but now the plebs want streaming movies broadband is breaking out all over the place...
      --
      • Mod parent up! [a] by Anonymous Coward (Score:5) Thurs, June 31, @13:37
  6. A smartphone needs familiarity, A cellphone not! by krazyninja · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Standards and familiarity would not be necessary, as long as people (ok, the majority of the people) tend to use the cellphone AS A cellphone. The moment you start to talk about a cellphone being used a mail client, a pocket computer, a storage device, and other "miniature" PC applications, then standards and familiarity become a must. The point is, nobody knows the market yet. Some analysts say, one device for one function is the best, some say a do-it-all device is better. And the market has not said anything yet.

    --
    "Do something man. Right now."
  7. More of a design issue by dsanfte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally I always found browsing on WinCE mobile PCs to be complicated by the fact that the browser itself likes to take up a good 35% of the screen space. Packing features in is great guys, but the first browser to give a sense of utility without making me feel like I'm browsing the net through a keyhole is the one that gets my money.

    --
    occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
  8. Bad Reasoning... by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "...which may be gaining the (initial) upper hand simply because they are not Microsoft. "

    Err right. That might be true in the /. Community, but the reality is that the vast majority of people either really don't care. Outside of Slashot, the real world isn't exactly vindictive against MS. Not everybody's running around being masochistic just for the sake not using MS stuff. "I spent 3 weeks making my Linux box do whatever my Windows box was already doing!" Whatever.

    The reason that Opera could be gaining ground is that they made a good product. That's it. Even in the mobile market. I got a chance to use a Zaurus running Opera, and found it to be a rather pleasant experience. It definitely kicked IE on PocketPC's butt.

    However, I'm not exactly picketing Opera to make a PocketPC version. Why? I don't browse the web on my PocketPC. It's a horrible experience. Not because IE is bad (although it is, at least for browsing the web) but because the PDA doesn't give you the resolution and speed you need. It works great with Avantgo, though. No complaints there. With AvantGo, the pages are formatted to PocketPC. As long as I have AvantGo (even works wirelessly), then I don't care if it's Opera or IE, or even Mozilla.

    Opera doesn't have a whole lot of chance of gaining ground until PDAs become capable of viewing entire web pages. I don't think that tech is very far away. LCD technology has gotten a lot better in the DPI realm. It won't be more than a year or two before those tiny devices can run at 480 by 640. When that happens, Opera suddenly becomes an interesting alternative.

    It's a pity, really. I think Opera deserves more attention on /. than Mozilla as an MS browser alternative. Zealousy abounds I guess. I say that because the only ding I can see against Opera is that it's Ad-supported. I'd care except they show cartoons in that banner window. Heh.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:Bad Reasoning... by nagora · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Err right. That might be true in the /. Community, but the reality is that the vast majority of people either really don't care.

      That's a consumer argument. System sellers, i.e. the phone manufacturers, have seen what happened to IBM when they made the mistake of allowing MS to control the "user experience" and they don't want it to happen to them.

      As it happens, Opera is a very good browser anyway. If it was open source it would get more support and would develop faster.

      TWW

      --
      "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
    2. Re:Bad Reasoning... by Russellkhan · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Err right. That might be true in the /. Community, but the reality is that the vast majority of people either really don't care. Outside of Slashot, the real world isn't exactly vindictive against MS. Not everybody's running around being masochistic just for the sake not using MS stuff. "I spent 3 weeks making my Linux box do whatever my Windows box was already doing!" Whatever.


      Actually, if you'd read the article, you'd have seen that the advantage Opera has in not being a MS product is that the MS browser will only run on a phone that has an MS operating system - and not many cell phone manufacturers are interested in going for that option at this point.

      It's a pity, really. I think Opera deserves more attention on /. than Mozilla as an MS browser alternative. Zealousy abounds I guess. I say that because the only ding I can see against Opera is that it's Ad-supported. I'd care except they show cartoons in that banner window. Heh.


      Why exactly does Opera deserve more attention than Mozilla? Having only one ding against it doesn't make it better unless you're saying that Mozilla has more dings against it. And the way I see it, Mozilla has several advantages over Opera:
      • It's Open Source, so it's not just a browser, it's the basis of several different browsers
      • It's free - without ads (If I want cartoons, I'd rather go someplace like OddTodd where I choose what to watch and when I'm going to watch it)
      • It's freely distributable so I can give a copy to my friends without worrying about legality
      • It has better support for web standards
      --
      Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
  9. Probably... by jaseuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    [i]Can phone makers, and a little Norwegian company called Opera, stop the onslaught?[/i]

    My experience with Scandanavian companies is that they like to stick together. They would much rather deal with someone close by or at least in the European Region.

    This gives Opera another leg up, as Nokia and Ericson are in the same region.

    Jason

  10. Mozilla is not perfect by Jacek+Poplawski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please do not blame Opera for not being open source. I remember I was using Opera in 1998, it was fast, it was small, it was usable. MSIE was always huge, slow, and bloated. But, Netscape wasn't much better. Now, after 4 years, there is free browser - Mozilla. I use it every day. But it's far from perfect. In 3-4 years they added irc client, mail/news stuff, and who knows what else. They completly forgot about speed. MSIE was huge? Compare 1998 MSIE with todays Mozilla.
    I am not using Opera, because I have strong computer and I can waste resources for such product like Mozilla. But there are places when Mozilla is not a right thing.

    1. Re:Mozilla is not perfect by sircrown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Opera 7.1 Beta: 3,111KB
      Galeon 1.2.6 RH RPM: 2792KB + Mozilla 12,700KB
      Phoenix 0.4 WIN32: 7224KB
      Mozilla WIN32 Nightly (ZIP): 11,341KB
      Dillo: 300KB however its not even close to a complete browser

  11. Software and data standards by Goth+Biker+Babe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In the end I'm shouldn't need to care what software is running on my phone. The worry I have is that if MS get control of the software it will put them in a position to control the data formats, protocols etc just as they have, to some extent, in the PC world.

    I owned an Ericsson T68i. I selected that phone because I wanted all the connectivity that it offered. I also picked it because I previously owned an Ericsson SH888 and it was well built and easy to use. The other factor that kept me with Ericsson was the availability of information regarding their products. The SH888 came with the reference manual (which included the AT command set) on the CD with the phone together with a data lead and synchronisation software. Similar data for the T68i is available on their web site.

    As a Linux fan I want access to the data formats and protocols that my hardware uses. All these are available for my 'phone. It runs Symbian's OS but I don't really care about that. I just care that its usable. If Microsoft come along and corner the market what will happen. Will they come up with their own munged non standard protocols and data formats. Will they force me to use only Windows when transfering data to and from my phone. I really don't want that to happen.

  12. separate mobile phones from mobile PDAs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful



    The openwave mobile browser has at least 70% of the global handset browser market - and growing.

    This is because Openwave is able to focus on this type of browser.

    Neither Microsoft or Opera is going to be able to trump this anytime soon. Microsoft is only a threat to the mobile PDA market. Opera is nowhere. Who is shipping with their browser?