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Lessons from the Browser Wars
An anonymous reader writes to mention a piece on the Harvard Business School site talking about Lessons from the Browser Wars; specifically, what can be learned about first-mover advantages and the upsurge in Firefox use? From the article: "As a tool for exploring how standards are set when new technologies hit the market, the browser wars exhibit many features we like to study: competition between two viable alternatives, rapidly improving technologies, the ability of firms to use strategic levers such as market power and channels of distribution, growth in demand leading to diffusion of the new technology through the population, and uncertainty. Thus, this is one example from which we can generalize lessons regarding the outcome of diffusion of innovation into a market."
The article states that web developers are prone to developing for the browser with the greatest market share (IE) over ones that do not. What a fallacy!
Personally, I test most of my web development on firefox and mozilla, due to it's superior debuging support. Only after I get a portion of script working in those browsers do I test in IE and make the appropriate fix (through javascript or conditional compilation) to get it to work for IE. IE seems to always be the browser that needs some sort of "special case senario" code to function properly, while the other browsers need little to no tweaks for cross browser compatibility. And when they do, it is usually a sign of bad scripting which is remedied accordingly. I can say that I have never needed to use a CSS hack. IE however tends to crave bad scripting, even requiring bad scripting in some cases.
After that, I test in Opera (as I find it to be the most unforgiving browser when it comes to quirks) to make sure everything is on the up and up, and fix accorindingly. Only then do I consider that section of script ready for production.
I try to test on macs as much as possible, but, lacking a mac, this becomes rather difficult. I DO test on them at least once or twice during and after development, just not as often. Changes made acordingly unless the issue is on IE mac 5, which I refuse to support (and if you're a web dev I'm sure you understand why).
Everyone I know does their code testing in something akin to this manner. The bottom line is, IE comes second to more standards compliant browsers.
All in all, I think this harvard cat needs to do a little more interviewing with web developers. If I could, I would develop with full standards complance only, and lets the devs at microsoft worry about my site not working in their browser. However, we're pretty far off form a perfect world no...?
Yes the mighty MS still pretends that IE is a Mozilla clone.
So what the fuck happened. Well a couple things. The easiest was that MS started to include IE by default even making it a core part of the OS (we are talking the era around the middle of 90's so this talk includes windows 3.1)
In those days when you signed up to an ISP it was not unusual to get a CD with browser software for you to install as they could not be certain you would already have a browser.
This made it much easier for netscape to "sell" its browser to ISP's to include on their installation CD (you most likely needed a bunch of other software as well not included by default with windows)
Because MS started to bundle the browser (and other network software) with the OS nowadays it is rare for an ISP to have an install CD.
This means that it is no longer possible for you to get different browser when you hook up to the net. Even if you know about other browsers and want one you will still use IE to download it.
But something else happened as well. Remember there was a time when every site was build around netscape and it was IE that had to pretend to be netscape.
So why was this followed by years of IE only sites?
Well netscape dropped the ball. Version 4 especially was a nightmare with bloat and bugs that made IE seem not all that bad after all. Or at least not bad enough for people to bother downloading a large install over a modem.
There was a long time when Netscape just wasn't worth it. Long enough for IE to take over. Not because it was that much better but it wasn't any worse either (well not at the time) so why should you download a replacement that is just as bad?
Some people say there is no similar market effect. I think there is. Car sound installations. While there is a high-tech market for after market sound systems for your car it is tiny compared to the pre-installed market.
For most of the standard cheap radio and speakers factory installed are apperantly good enough and the cost and time involved in upgrading to a product no matter how superior is just not worth it.
So does Firefox stand a chance.
Well perhaps.
After all a cheapo car radio doesn't kill you. No matter how much the boxes may distort your favorite music they do not allow anyone to drive off with your car.
IE on the other hand is the car equivelant of a start button in a convertible.
IF this insecurity ever becomes to much of a risk then in theory people themselves would look for ways to make their OS more secure.
Yeah right.
I mentioned cars for a reason. Check the history of safety belts. In all the seats of a car. The dangers of unrestrained kids/luggage/pets in an aciddent are well known (both to themselves and other passengers) yet people actually fight safety measures designed to save their lives.
So what change does Firefox have of being adopted because it might safe people from some software accidents?
When american car manufacturers refused to make secure cars did american car buyers enmass buy european/japanese cars instead?
No. Only when the fuel price became unbearable did this happen.
As always, money is the ultimate motivator. As long as IE doesn't cost people more then it costs them to install firefox (cost as in time, hazzle, having to think for a second) then IE will not be replaced.
Personally I switched from IE to opera for just this reason. Opera has the unique feature of being able to resume easily and cleanily from where it left off after a crash. IE cost me to much time by crashing just as I had found the site with free porn eh, the site with really usefull info. Opera saved me time.
Nothing to do with security. I knew enough to make IE secure. (This was back a few years whe
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yes on both counts.
I'm really sick of people attacking IE. Sure, IE has always introduced alot of proprietary features, but the black fact is when IE6 came out back in 2001 it was the most powerful browser in existance on the Windows platform. If not for Firefox extensions or Opera's recent offerings it would, IMHO, still be so...sorry tabbed interfaces just don't cut it from a technical standpoint for me.
There are lots of little gems in IE. Microsoft introduced the XMLHttpRequest object and XML data islands. Mozilla have done *alot* for the actual browser as an application, but when was the last time Mozilla was bold and invented and introduced something new and exciting into actual (X)HTML rendering or ECMAScript(JavaScript)?
I'm all for standards from the W3C but some people do not like or are very nervous about the way XHTML2 for example is leading the web.
When the XMLHttpRequest JS interface was seen to be 'approved' in use by Google and given a nice buzzword, or just perhaps considered slightly useful, it was soon picked up by all the other major browsers in existance as an adhoc standard.
All i'm trying to say is, don't fear proprietary experimentation and mindlessly adopt *just* the standards. You may now resume hammering MS for not updating their web standards support in so long.
Fine. You can explain to my grandparents why they shouldn't use IE anymore, if its so simple to get people to switch. They really truely did have trouble adjusting to Firefox from IE. You see, they didn't ever really learn how the thing worked, they just learned how to go through the motions of using it, and so even the change in the iconsets seemed to throw them for a bit.
"But usually it only takes a little push to send people over to the other side"
This would explain, then, why Apple has managed to capture most of the PC market with just the little push that their "Switch" ad campaign provided to people fed up with windows 98, and why the average home user is switching to Linux en masse thanks to a little prodding from a friend of a friend who uses it?
Theres the occasional person who defects from the standard set of applications, and the move to these alternatives is picking up steam, but I'd still say that Firefox is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to popularity. People will put up with a lot of inconveniences to avoid something new. The alternatives (If they're even aware that any exist) are unknown terrain, so bright and frightening, and it unnerves them. Will they break something, will they still know what they're doing?
Agreed that people will generally put up with annoyance over change. Most people will struggle on with cheap unreliable cars than spend the extra up-front on a more reliable vehicle (or learn to do maintanance themselves).
It's also worth doing a search on the Economic Theory of Lemons.
In summary, traditional market theory presumes consumers are acting with perfect knowledge - thus competition will arrive at the best product / price point.
In reality, the majority of consumers act with less than perfect knowledge, making it hard for anyone to make a return of a genuinely better product, thus driving the quality of the market downwards.
The other problem with switching is that it only takes one site that doesn't work on Firefox or Opera or Safari to make someone decide to stick with the one that 'works'.
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh