COO’s Like Pie Charts, But Only When They Get a Slice
In Scott McNulty’s latest TUAW post he shares anti-Safari leanings with Mozilla’s COO John Lilly. Both seem to focus on two things, 1) that many browser-options make the web a far better place and 2) that Safari is as awful as IE because it’s made by the maker of an OS.
Hmmmm, I take issue with both of these point. As a developer I have nothing fundamentally against Firefox, I think they’ve worked to embrace standards and have been successful at pushing users away from IE, but I disagree that more browsers make the web a better place, I think the more browsers squabble for market share (basically IE’s leavings) the tougher it makes things for developers and users. I’m sure John’s view of the world would change if the pie chart had FF as the Pac-Man eating IE, but that’s not the case. Here’s the truth…Firefox has been good for the web, but because of what it is and how’s it has come together. That doesn’t mean we need more browsers.
As for the second point, c’mon easy on the hyperbole guys. I don’t see how John (and Scot echoed) can say that Safari and IE are the same level of evil because they are made by OS developers, hogwash. IE was beyond embedded into the OS, it was within the fabric of the OS. Webkit certainly plays a role in elements of the mac OS, but you can easily remove Safari and go about your merry way. Safari is being pushed as an alternative, to which browser is up to you as a user. Frankly the comparison is short-sighted. Apple is and should be building the best possible solutions to its users problems, part of that strategy is a web platform that they can control. Why? Performance, stability, connectivity, interop, etc. More power to them.
Here’s the key, Firefox is worried because it’s another choice, not because it might magically someday remove choice…they are concerned that set of geeks and geeks-in-laws that have chosen or ben coerced into leaving IE for Firefox may revisit that decision and go Safari. They are concerned of the pressure it puts on them to innovate and manage expectations, there’s another player that is ambitious, motivated, funded and worst off for Firefox…cross-platform and backed by fanatics. Apple has the marketing and innovation to keep Firefox on their heels, IE be damned. See here’s the thing, if your IT folks at work don’t let you have Firefox you ain’t getting Safari. So the only Windows people moving to Safari already have the choice…and ability to make a switch.
This post fell apart, I’ve got no time to edit :) Take from it what you will. Firefox is a cool product, they’ve done good things for the web. They just need to own up to the reality that they aren’t the only ones that can take on IE and if they don’t keep building good stuff (and work on marketing) they might get lost in the shuffle.
Why all the craziness…Slide #2
If we don’t need more browsers, why did Apple announce Safari four years ago, and why is Apple porting Safari to Windows in the first place? :-)
More choice is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not always a problem for web developers, for instance Firefox and Camino are using the same rendering engine (Gecko 1.8.1). Same with Safari, Shiira and OmniWeb (WebKit). And these engines are quite standard compliant, anyway.
It’s good for users. Some Mac users will prefer Firefox because of the large amount of extensions, others will prefer Camino because of a more Mac-like user interface. Safari is pretty simple, OmniWeb is highly configurable. To each his own.
Having too few options is a frustrating situation to be in, the days of Netscape Navigator vs Internet Explorer are not so fondly remembered.
Lilly didn’t really say that Safari and IE are the same level of evil because they are made by OS developers. He said that if Safari and IE were the two only options, the access to the web would be controlled by the two dominant OS vendors… as if by chance. And according to him this isn’t how the world should be. Not so surprising from the perspective of the Mozilla Foundation.
I agree that the Foundation is likely worried by the arrival of Safari for Windows, but Firefox is already under IE7’s pressure. They must continue to innovate no matter what, or people will simply go back to IE now that it has tabs, a search bar, a phishing filter, etc. Safari is only adding more pressure.
They must fear Apple’s marketing prowess more than Safari’s release schedule, though. There won’t be too much pressure in this area.
New versions of Firefox are released on a yearly basis: v1.0 in Nov. 2004, v1.5 in Nov. 2005, v2.0 in Oct. 2006, Firefox 3.0 will follow this year.
New versions of Safari are released every 2 years: Safari 1.0 was released on June 2003, version 2.0 on April 2005, Safari 3.0 will follow this year.
To your point about Safari, I think it’s been a benefit having that browser in the market, even if only for mac for so long. At the time Apple introduced Safari Firefox was not nearly the ‘gem’ it is today. At the end of the day Apple has the money and strategy to do things Firefox/Mozilla cannot. But I think Apple’s main objective it penetrating Windows soley to advance their iPhone platform, to push developers to make sites/apps compatible with Safari so they work on the iPhone, period. If that scare Firefox/OmniWeb/Opera so be it. Folks using these other browsers are niche players, a vocal minority to be sure, but little else in the big market perspective.
People are usually kinda worried when they ear about a new competitor, all the more so when their app ‘disappears’ from the competitor’s pie charts. :-)
I don’t agree that folks using Firefox are niche players. Firefox currently has 75 to 100 million users according to Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. Let’s be conservative and say that 70 or 75 million users are browsing the web with Firefox. Safari has 18.6 million users at the moment according to Steve Jobs.
I’m a Mac guy, I hope that Apple will succeed in raising the number of Safari users. Next year at the WWDC Jobs will announce that the number has reached say 40 million, doubling Safari’s share. But I think that Firefox will be ahead.
Sorry, I wasn\’t clear - the niche browsers were the Operas and OmniWebs of the world. I didn\’t mean to have Firefox in that list. I agree they are a force.