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Firefox Shooting For 10 Percent
Random BedHead Ed writes "An
article on ZDNet Monday features an interview with Bart Decrem, the Mozilla organization spokesman, who says that by the end of next year they expect to have 10% of the browser share. "We have the momentum," he says. He attributes some of the success to faster browsing and a lack of software bloat, and suggests that other open source projects might see similar success if they trim features. The article also quotes some very interesting figures from ZDNet's own web servers. About 9% of ZDnet visitors were using a Mozilla browser in February; now in it's at 19%." The average for OSTG overall is about 30%.
.. that all those obnoxious web developers who make their sites IE only "because it's got 99% of the market" will have to stop telling us to "just use IE" and learn to develop standards compliant websites?
The typical ZDNet visitor is much more technically savvy than the average internet user. This explains why their Mozilla use rate has increase. Go to www.aarp.org and you more than likely won't see the same results.
The tipping point is coming. The point where enough late-adopters see news stories, tv segments, links on the web, and most importantly, other late-adopters using firefox. I actually think numbers like 25% or higher are achievable.
The desire to want to match features is an artifact of the hidden source monolithic development model. If you have a product you're trying to sell, you want to maximize how attractive it looks to the purchaser.
FOSS developers, on the other hand, generally want to use the program they're writing (and don't want its performance to suffer). Also, they're open to the possibility that their niche has a boundary past which they shouldn't grow. There is generally less financial pressure to add new features than there is general pressure to keep the program working.
The thing that keeps Linux competitive is that Linus won't accept (*) a new kernel feature patch that decreases performance. As a result, Linux benefits from new hardware but continues to work on the older stuff (or at least, you can make it work).
I think as long as the Mozilla people keep these principles in mind, they'll keep doing great work.
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(* except for emergency security fixes, or in a development kernel where the current state of a new patch is too slow, but the technology looks like it will eventually be faster.)
sigs, as if you care.
I don't think anything else needs to be said.
The financial and business effect of browser choice is not felt on the client side, it is not typically a factor in purchase decisions.
It is felt on the server side and determines who gets to drive standards.
Additionally Firefox is carrying the banner for freely available open source software on the client much like sendmail and apache have done on the server. The success of Firefox will encourage other developers and increase the rate of adoption on software such as Open Office.
If Microsoft doesn't control the applications that people use the most, they can't make sure that only Windows runs those applications. This, quite obviously, is bad news for them since it makes it much easier to migrate from Windows to another OS.
I think you hit it on the head. I'd guess that for most people, a browser and office suite is all they use. If people see they can use some other browser, and some other office suite, it's not far from there to using some other operating system.
Sort of like hoof and mouth disease for their cash cow.
sigs, as if you care.
The theory was that if MS controls the client, they can influence other things.
Here are the two ideas:
If MS controlls the browser 99% of people use, then they can change the HTML spec at will. Add a few MS only extensions, a few "nifty things" that other browsers can't do, like pipelining and activex. The theory is that people will be stuck with your OS, your web editor, your browser, and -- possibly -- your Server, all because somewhere down the line it becomes too painful NOT to.
The other theory is the ActiveX thing. If the browser becomes a platform for actual programs, for example web based games, shopping systems, etc, then people are going to be locked in to that format if they are going to want to go to that website. So if they can sucker enough programmers into using ActiveX or some other MS-extended mess, then the users are going to be stuck with IE in order to view that content. Of course, how do they keep the programmers stuck using ActiveX? By suckering enough users to use IE in the first place. Fortunately, PHP, Java, and the general suckyness of ActiveX kinda stopped that in it's tracks.
Then of course, you can make these things patiented, and prevent other people from even trying to beat you at your own game.
So yeah. The idea of MS losing a good 50% or market share -- which is very much a real possibility, since most tech grunts who work at ISPs *MUCH* prefer customers who don't use Outlook and IE (MUCH MUCH easier calls) is a good thing, because it will have a snowball effect.
I couldn't disagree more. I'm responsible for a web-based application that my company's customers use to access our database, generate reports, fetch scanned documents, etc. and I made strict XHTML/1.0+CSS compliance a critical priority from the first day of planning. Because of this, our clients can use Windows+IE, Windows+Firefox, OSX+Safari, Linux+Konqueror, or good ol' Lynx to use every bit of functionality throughout the site.
Our clients are in the transportation industry, and many of them have Internet-connected computers solely to visit our site. As it stands right now, they have no reason whatsoever to stick with Windows when they buy their next computer. If their friends tell them to get a Mac because they're easier to use, fine. If their kid installs Linux for them because it's free, fine. If they want to stick with Windows, that's also OK.
The point is that I've given them no reason to keep from switching to a different OS if they want to. I didn't do this because I'm anti-Microsoft - I just wanted a good experience for our customers - but I'm sure that Bill and friends would've preferred that I approached it differently.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Or ... people are pro-firefox but don't think that donating to a full page ad in the paper is the best use of money.
I'm definitely pro-firefox. I've gotten numerous people to switch. I'm willing to spend my time getting someone installed and tweaking the app to their preferences, but I can think of a lot of other places I'd rather spend my money than for a one-shot ad in the paper.