Microsoft Extends an Embrace to Firefox
Microsoft announced last week that it would help the Mozilla folks assure that the Firefox web browser will work well on Windows Vista. They even offered to house some Firefox staff at Redmond and provide a testbed and assistance.
Some commentators have displayed distrust of Microsoft's motives. Some have suggested that Microsoft wants to somehow steal Firefox IP, which is, after all, so hard to otherwise obtain for an open source product. Another amusing theory is that this is a recruiting ploy to entice Firefox whizzes to jump ship.
I think it may have happened this way: At some Microsoft meeting, the subject of Firefox and Vista came up. Someone said something like, "I know this is a bit whacky, but why do we really care if people use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer?" After a long silence, someone else said, "You know, that is a very good question. We used to care a lot, but I’m not sure there is any longer a reason to care."
When Microsoft declared war on Netscape a decade ago, Windows had no Internet capability. The threat was that the Netscape browser might somehow evolve in such a way as to take over the user interface and make Windows irrelevant. Microsoft did not much understand the Internet or the web and its brain trust used an extreme version of the "attack their strength" strategy, attack and kill ("embrace and extend" in polite company). The rest is history.
That was then. Today, Windows has Internet and web functionality deep in its guts. Desktop applications can and do use these capabilities regardless of which browser a user may choose to use. In fact, Internet Explorer is now really just an application that uses Windows internet services, Improving Internet Explorer is costly. Its security problems have given Microsoft a black eye that never seems to heal. It does not bring in a dime of revenue. It causes antitrust problems. And Microsoft now fully understands what a web browser is and is not, and that a browser is no longer a strategic threat to Windows.
In fact, imagine a world with lots of browsers in use on Windows, some with differentiating personalities, like the Flock browser which is geared towards photo sharing. Imagine that the browser as a general purpose web interface gadget became just one sort of browser. We may find that web applications that run on specialized browsers provide richer user experiences. We may one day use different browsers as much as today we use different applications.
How exactly would that threaten the Windows franchise? Perhaps it would not. Perhaps it would expand the market for the platforms which run Windows. Perhaps it is time to end the browser war so the Microsoft brain trust can focus resources on more important strategic issues?
Copyright © 2006 Philip Bookman
Technorati: Firefox Microsoft
Some commentators have displayed distrust of Microsoft's motives. Some have suggested that Microsoft wants to somehow steal Firefox IP, which is, after all, so hard to otherwise obtain for an open source product. Another amusing theory is that this is a recruiting ploy to entice Firefox whizzes to jump ship.
I think it may have happened this way: At some Microsoft meeting, the subject of Firefox and Vista came up. Someone said something like, "I know this is a bit whacky, but why do we really care if people use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer?" After a long silence, someone else said, "You know, that is a very good question. We used to care a lot, but I’m not sure there is any longer a reason to care."
When Microsoft declared war on Netscape a decade ago, Windows had no Internet capability. The threat was that the Netscape browser might somehow evolve in such a way as to take over the user interface and make Windows irrelevant. Microsoft did not much understand the Internet or the web and its brain trust used an extreme version of the "attack their strength" strategy, attack and kill ("embrace and extend" in polite company). The rest is history.
That was then. Today, Windows has Internet and web functionality deep in its guts. Desktop applications can and do use these capabilities regardless of which browser a user may choose to use. In fact, Internet Explorer is now really just an application that uses Windows internet services, Improving Internet Explorer is costly. Its security problems have given Microsoft a black eye that never seems to heal. It does not bring in a dime of revenue. It causes antitrust problems. And Microsoft now fully understands what a web browser is and is not, and that a browser is no longer a strategic threat to Windows.
In fact, imagine a world with lots of browsers in use on Windows, some with differentiating personalities, like the Flock browser which is geared towards photo sharing. Imagine that the browser as a general purpose web interface gadget became just one sort of browser. We may find that web applications that run on specialized browsers provide richer user experiences. We may one day use different browsers as much as today we use different applications.
How exactly would that threaten the Windows franchise? Perhaps it would not. Perhaps it would expand the market for the platforms which run Windows. Perhaps it is time to end the browser war so the Microsoft brain trust can focus resources on more important strategic issues?
Copyright © 2006 Philip Bookman
Technorati: Firefox Microsoft
Labels: software strategy
posted by Phil Bookman at 9:43 AM
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