Remember on Monday when Steve Jobs, Lord of all our Earthly realm, proclaimed Safari as the best browser ever and that Apple wanted to steal market share from Internet Explorer? The COO of Mozilla noticed that too and didn’t like it one bit. So he’s called Apple out.
On his personal Web blog, John Lilly questions Jobs’ view of the way the Internet works. Gone are the days, he says, where a top-down model drives the flow of information and gone are the days of one or two browsers dominating the Web browser scene. There’s plenty of room for Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, etc. That Apple wants to “control,” so-to-speak, the Internet vis-à-vis Safari is part of the old way of thinking—the new way is Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Linux, etc. People-drive, in other words. Apple’s “Safari will rule all” mantra is out of date.
Lilly doesn’t have any problem with Jobs wanting Safari to be the best it can be, of course. Who could? Better browsers beget better browsers all around. Everyone wins. But thinking that the Web is destined to become a two-broswer war of attrition is foolish.
I wonder if the honeymoon between Apple and—hell, it seems like everybody, doesn’t it?—is finally over?
A Picture’s Worth 100M Users??? [John's Blog via Macworld UK]
I think John Lilly has two L’s. More on actual thoughts when my boss isn’t meandering down the hall to talk to me.
Good eye, Jon.
Shhh… nobody tell Jobs he won’t take over the world, he might go insane and decide not to release the iPhone.
I read this earlier today and I’m still a bit fuzzy on his concern. Sure apple would like market share, what company doesn’t? Isn’t THAT how people vote for what they think is the best product? Exception being IE.
There’s plenty of room for IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, iCab, and so on.
But Steve focused on the Alpha browser, IE. IE is the default market winner because, I have come to learn from speaking with many people, they don’t second guess the browser they are using. It works and that’s that.
Apple has the power to change that thinking of new computer users. You can use a different browser and it’s free (except for Opera, I believe)
I think John needs to calm down, Firefox is a great product and I don’t think Safari will create a duopoly, maybe Safari will get 20% market by the end of the year. Firefox should gain as well, from exposure in related articles.
I don’t think Apple should be treated like Microsoft as far as world domination.
Apple wants to be the best and that is something they have to earn with users.
Firefox could use some more grassroots advertising, so many people never heard of the thing. If Firefox won’t make the effort to switch users from IE then Apple will. Apple has iTunes installed on 500 million computers. That’s 500 million open doors to “sell” Safari.
I think one reason Steve Jobs is putting Safari for Windows out there is so that PC users will be able to more-easily write web apps for the iPhone (which uses Safari).
In addition, any increase in Safari utilization will provide that much more incentive for webmasters to create sites that don’t require the use of IE.
Gordon’s got two solid reasons for Safari on Windows. Another reason for Safari on Windows (sorry to cite the obvious): it’s another way for Apple to put Apple on the screens of Windows users, as with iTunes and Quicktime, to get them to consider other Apple products they actually have to pay for.
I think Jobs made a smart move porting Safari to Windows, that said I have little intention of using it…Unless Firefox continues to suffer from bloat, but I’m hoping 3.0 will fix this. I think the major players at this point will be IE, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. I don’t really see anyone else peaking onto the screen. Safari will require some significant marketing to break out of its Mac user corner. Opera needs a marketing genius to help their cause. They have a great browser, but haven’t been able to go viral like Firefox. IE is doing okay and will stay the default for mom and pops until PC vendors begin defaulting to another browser (if that ever happens).
I think the reason Lilly saw red is the slide in the image at the top of this post. Compare it with the earlier slide (shown in Lilly’s blog): Jobs is saying he wants to crush everyone *except* Microsoft in the browser space. An interesting choice of targets, perhaps Apple feels the current IE market share is nearing bottom so any gain for Safari has to be at the expense of the other players. The reality is that Safari has exactly the same problem that all the non-Microsoft browsers have: it isn’t the default that ships with the OS so the vast majority of users will never consider using anything else.
John Lilly over-reacted to Jobs comments. Jobs gave a marketing presentation showing that Apple is going to make a business move, and for the obvious reasons – mindshare. As other posters have pointed out, iTunes, Quicktime and, now, Safari put Apple as a brand in front of Windows users as an addition rather than an alternative that requires lots of overhead to convert. But then, why not get an intel-based mac and run both, since you like the Apple browser and iTunes and Apple iPhone and Apple TV? Looks to me more like a branding strategy in one sense. But then, having a browser on the Windows platform opens up other technology options for Apple sales and expansion, by putting an Apple-controlled framework where Apple can extend it straightforwardly. It’s a starting point for additional media opportunities.
A little technical clarification.
Programming to Safari means programming to Webkit, an open-source, professional-quality, browser engine which works on all major platforms.
There is scope for hundreds of browsers, but finally, there may well be the promise of “universal html” which doesn’t need to take each browsers disabilities into account, since they can all be built on the same rendering engine.
Context matters!
The chart was intended to illustrate the maximum segment of browser market-share that Safari could obtain if it remained solely on the Mac platform. (Watch the keynote, people, jeez!) Just prior to the slide shown in the photo above, the “Safari” segment of the pie showed the share of all non-IE browsers.
The chart was then updated to demonstrate (in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner) that even if Safari trumped all the other browsers out there (and there are a lot on the Mac) they could never get any more of the pie.
The presentation was imperfect, and the chart oversimplified the situation, but it was only intended to illustrate the limits of market-share available without crossing over to Windows. And for that it was effective.
John Lilly has since done more than just “overreact.” He has been misrepresenting the whole point and spreading a whole bunch of meaningless FUD. Why? Did he really not understand Steve’s presentation? Maybe he never watched it. Whether he’s being stupid or just plain dishonest, it sure doesn’t make the Mozilla organization look very good.
This also lets web developers test Safari designs on Windows boxes – before this, they’d have to buy a Mac for the 5% Safari marketshare, which is not something a lot of developers would do. Hence, compatibility is increased.