Mozilla: The problem is mobile, not money

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57550227-93/mozilla-the-problem-is-mobile-not-money/

by aphtab • 14 years ago

61 57 14 years ago

news.cnet.com

binarymax• 14 years ago

Mozilla can't bring its full browser technology to iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows RT Does this give other people the willies, or only me? Its scary that 2 of the 3 big players in mobile effectively lock out so much. In so many ways, the mobile wars are much more significant than the browser wars. Having a machine that is completely locked down and only runs 'authorized' software is chilling indeed.

bad_user6• 14 years ago

I've been saying it ever since the iTunes App Store launched and have been saying it again when Windows Phone launched - I'm not interested in platforms that won't allow me to run Firefox.

Of course, you'll see yet again opinions trying to rationalize it as being "in the name of user experience" and "safety".

But then, a couple of years from now, when those people finally realize what a big mistake this was, they won't blame it on themselves.

flyinRyan2• 14 years ago

When you run around shouting the sky is falling, you can't expect most people to take you seriously. Apple is winning (profit wise) because they just have a simpler experience.

IMO, they are doing everything right except adding an "advanced" mode that people who really know what they're doing can use. But I know why they don't do that: because a lot more people will think they know what they're doing than actually do.

If they start turning into the locked down 1984 world you're worried about, someone else will come out with an alternative, show why it's better and most people will move over there.

No one cares about moral ranting. Show people a tangible, relevant benefit to them (that is, tangible like "cheaper" not abstract like "you're more free!") and they'll buy in. Brow beating has never been an effective way to affect change.

wmf• 14 years ago

It also hurts the Web in general, because phones with old OSes can't upgrade their browser.

Samuel_Michon2• 14 years ago

Luckily, because it's open, Android has no such problems.

Only 2.7% of all Android devices run the current version, but I'm sure that every Android user has an up to date third party browser they use exclusively.

http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

paupino_masano2• 14 years ago

I think this misses the point. I'm not sure about Windows phone, but iOS has Chrome and Opera already. While they are not default browsers, they still have an offering available for download.

I think when he says they can't, I think it is more about their code base/engine requirements than anything else.

tl• 14 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but iOS does not have Chrome or Opera because the only browser allowed is Safari/UIWebView. It has an app called "Chrome" that runs UIWebView and has features like tab/bookmark sharing.

yawn• 14 years ago

It's the main reason that I have switched to Android. I like the idea of "App Stores", but I hate the idea of "App Store Only". The mobile App Store success has lead to the invasion of the desktop, and I worry about openness in the future.

azakai• 14 years ago

> Mozilla can't bring its full browser technology to iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows RT Does this give other people the willies, or only me? Its scary that 2 of the 3 big players in mobile effectively lock out so much.

Windows is not a big player in mobile, despite the media attention it receives in the US. The only major players are Android and iOS. So it's 1 out of 2, not 2 out of 3.

jrl3• 14 years ago

Yes, it's worse than Microsoft's dominance of PCs in the 1990s. Back then, at least you could install whatever software you wanted in your machine. Now it's completely locked down in the iPhone and Windows Phone. What happened to the hacker culture that defended users' and programmers' rights? We should be making more noise about this problem.

gte910h5• 14 years ago

People have installed linux on iPhones. They just need to keep pushing that branch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yO2KQHkt4A

But no, they go off and make their own OS instead of pushing the free one that's there.

gte910h5• 14 years ago

Honestly, no?

My refrigerator, toaster, TV appliances, and washing machine are all relatively locked down as well.

Android is a MAJOR player still (at least in install base, they're proving less popular as far as dollars spent in the first world). The fact Mozilla is writing their own OS instead of supporting Android is silly. Their OS will not end up running on apple phones, and if it could, the'd get more bang for their buck porting android to apple/winRT hardware.

lambda2• 14 years ago

> My refrigerator, toaster, TV appliances, and washing machine are all relatively locked down as well

Yes, but you don't generally install new software on those. They might as well have everything implemented in hardware.

The concern is that Apple and Microsoft are retaining a monopoly on the ability to install new software on your machine. They can install new software (or give you permission to), but no one else can. It's not that much of a problem if something isn't extensible at all; it's the drastic imbalance of power, in which they hold all of the cards, that is the problem

Android is much better, but it's still not perfect. It's based on Java and Google's own APIs, which they fully control. Google controls the play store, and many carriers sell locked phones that prevent you from installing your own software outside of the play store, as well as limiting what software you can install from there.

So, Mozilla does support Android, by releasing their browser on it. But they also believe that they can do better; create something that's more open, more hackable, more accessible than Android. Can they? I'm not sure. There are lots of frustrating things about the Web platform as well, I don't know if it's going to be better than Android's Java based platform. And Mozilla doesn't have the same resources as Google, so may not be able to deliver Nexus-style phones and tablets. But I do appreciate that they're putting in the effort, to try and innovate and provide an alternative experience.

tmister5• 14 years ago

I think Mozilla have made a big mistake by not complaining about bundling Safari in iOS devices. It looked jokingly funny when they attacked Microsoft for IE bundling Windows8 RT when they had 0% market share. Now look at the market, Android have almost 70% of market share and iOS took other. So where does Firefox stands now? This situation forced Mozila to write a new mobile OS which I think does not stand a chance against other big contenders. In 3/4 years I think Firefox will be like what Opera is currently right now, small niche market share. I am sadly saying this as die-hard Firefox user. This is what you get when you compromise openness.

bad_user6• 14 years ago

I use Firefox on my Android.

tmister5• 14 years ago

But it is not default. Does a normal user have an urge to change the default browser even it performs worse than non-default browser http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/12o9oy/why_is_chrom... ?

ZeroGravitas• 14 years ago

For monopoly type things it's not your power in the new market that counts, it's your power in the old market. People are often confused about this because the last time Microsoft was so succesful in extending its monopoly from desktop to browser that it nearly wiped out every alternative browser and peaked at something ridiculous like 90% market share, so there's longstanding confusion about which monopoly they were punished for abusing.

(Just checked Wikipedia, apparently several sources pegged them at about 95% share around 2002-2004).

tmister5• 14 years ago

Isn't the same thing happening right now even if there is no visual monopoly situation? Do you really think people will switch to Firefox and Opera when default offering is good enough? Also, though I haven't used IE6 at that time but several commenter here and reddit says that IE6 was ahead of completion at that time, netscape was also partly to blame for their demise. So what was the point of blaming Microsoft for bundling a Better browser at that time, while same thing is perfectly acceptable now?

jrl3• 14 years ago

I have asked myself the same question, why doesn't Mozilla file an antitrust complain or something like that against Apple? They're not only bundling their own browser, but also actively preventing competitors from using the platform.

bryanlarsen• 14 years ago

If Apple actually had a monopoly share in the smartphone market, such a complaint would likely proceed quite quickly. They don't have a monopoly market share so they face many fewer constraints under anti-trust law.

winstonian• 14 years ago

Their expenses are nuts. Over $100 million?! What's going on there?

thirdtruck2• 14 years ago

Comparing that with the profits from a single opening weekend of iPhone sales (a much larger number), I think we're getting a pretty good deal.

nolok2• 14 years ago

This makes no sense, those two things have nothing in common, might as well compare their annual expenses to apples and oranges sales in the year.

gte910h5• 14 years ago

Hardware sales are vastly different than software sales. Revenue is much higher in hardware based sales due to cost of materials.

polshaw• 14 years ago

Shame they didn't link to their annual reports or something../s.

Turns out aggressively developing one of the world's most popular browsers, a mobile browser and a mobile OS costs a lot of money. $100m for software development, $20m for admin and $17m for branding/marketing.

They are non profit so there is no point in keeping money in a box. You might perhaps hope they got a little more done for that kind of money (conservatively 800 full time devs.. main gripe would be a faster JS engine), but i guess large organisations aren't too efficient.

http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio...

eigenvector• 14 years ago

800 full time devs? No, maybe 800 full time employees (I would say less when you account for much higher salaries at the top as well as costs like benefits, pension contributions, etc.). In a software development organization of that size how many do you think are actually writing code? Maybe half?

Engineering management, sysadmins, quality assurance, release management, support staff at each location, etc. all go into that $100m figure.

programminggeek• 14 years ago

The thing is Mozilla exists to promote the open web and open source and yet you have Android which is open source and WebKit which is open source both basically supplanting Mozilla on mobile and people act surprised somehow. FirefoxOS is interesting, but gosh, why would a company push a Firefox phone when there's already Android?

jrl3• 14 years ago

FirefoxOS might make the mobile web better. It will give web developers more access to the device's hardware, unlike a website running stock Android browser. Everybody has been saying it for years, native apps can do more than web apps in iOS and Android. I wish that FirefoxOS changed that, similarly to how Chrome pushed HTML5 on the desktop.

Mozilla: The problem is mobile, not money

Related Stories