Saturday, August 29, 2009
Weekend Update, 8.29.09–The “Skank” Issue
As of this week, pretty much anyone can tell you–“Skank” blogging just doesn’t pay. Unless your $15 million privacy lawsuit against Google ends up going your way, that is. Rosemary Port, the person who used Blogger to anonymously insult former model Liskula Cohen, was unmasked last week after months of speculation and promptly sued Google for turning over her information. Hilarity ensued, complete with dueling morning TV appearances.
Once the plucky underdog in the browser battle, Mozilla’s Firefox is today the second most popular browser worldwide, after Internet Explorer. Since it was first released in November 2004, the browser has succeeded not just in dislodging IE from its dominant market position, but in proving that an open-source project can become a widely used consumer application. At 7:47 am PDT this morning, the browser reached its billionth download.
After four beta versions and nearly as many release candidates, Firefox 3.5 is finally here. This latest version of the browser offers a number of new features. Among them: Private browsing, location aware surfing, support for emerging HTML 5 standards such as plug-in-free video and audio playing, and better JavaScript performance.
Microsoft’s proposal to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7 in Europe may put the company in compliance with European law, but it’s not going to lead to better competition in the browser market. That’s the word from Microsoft’s rivals at home and abroad who say the “must-carry” provision the European Commission has been mulling as a solution to the company’s antitrust indiscretions is the only one that will work.
What a brilliant move. The European Commission claims Microsoft’s practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows violates European competition laws, so the company strips IE out of European versions of Windows 7. Now the Commission can’t argue that Microsoft’s behavior distorts fair competition in the browser market because, well, there’s no browser.
Is Microsoft truly committed to bringing its major productivity applications to mobile devices? Of course it is. Will the iPhone be one of them? Absolutely. How can I say that with such certainty? Well, because Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s Business Division, hinted at Web 2.0 Expo yesterday that it would be. But more importantly, because Microsoft formally announced it last November.
Oh, they’re all piling on now. Google has thrown its backing behind European antitrust regulators’ latest complaint against Microsoft, which accuses the software behemoth of illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows operating system. Like Mozilla before it, the company is applying to become a “third party” in the European proceeding.
Apple touts Safari 4, released as a public beta this morning, as the world’s fastest Web browser for Mac and Windows PCs, and after using it for a short time, it’s tough to disagree. Safari 4 is fast–three times as fast as Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3, if Apple’s typically hyperbolic claims are to be believed.
Mozilla is not only adding its voice to that of European antitrust regulators who claim Microsoft’s bundling of IE with its Windows OS is anticompetitive, but offering its counsel as well. In a post to the Mozilla blog last weekend, Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker said that she had “not the single smallest iota of doubt” that the European Commission’s preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between Web browsers” is correct.
The stock market’s performance this past year isn’t the only thing that’s charting historic lows. According to preliminary December metrics from Net Applications, the share of the browser market held by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has slipped below 70 percent. 
Mozilla renewed its search deal with Google last August, signing a three-year contract that ends in November 2011. Good thing too; the agreement was set to expire this month and if it had, Mozilla would have been forced to look elsewhere for the bulk of its income.
