Mozilla plans free mobile browser
March 3, 2008
Mike Schroepfer is vice president of engineering at Mozilla
Mozilla will soon introduce a free Mobile Firefox browser, pitting it against Apple Inc.’s Safari, Opera Software and Nokia in addition to proprietary wireless carrier applications.
Two developers have been hired to work on Mobile Firefox. A release for the embedded Linux and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating systems will be ready by year’s end.
“People ask us all the time about what Mozilla's going to do about the mobile Web, and I'm very excited to announce that we plan to rock it,” said Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Mozilla, in his blog last week. “We are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and technology to mobile devices.
“A large portion of the world accesses the Internet from mobile devices, and this will become increasingly true over time – mobile devices outsell computers 20-1,” he said. “Each Firefox install is an individual choice by a person to download something that didn't ship by default on their computer.”
This launch will affect the carrier’s walled garden, or on-deck portal. It could mean good news or bad news for carriers. On the one hand, they could generate more revenue from the increase in data transmission. Or, carriers may just become a bit-pipeline to the Internet.
Mozilla has been criticized for its late foray into mobile. But will slow and steady win the race? Competitors including Apple Safari, Opera Software, Microsoft and Nokia already have a jump with their own mobile browsers.
“The user demand for a full browsing experience on mobile devices is clear,” Mr. Schroepfer said. “If you weren't sure about this before, you should be after the launch of the iPhone. We've seen through Mozilla on the Nokia N800 and Minimo that it is possible to build a great experience on devices by using the Mozilla code.”
Mozilla will add mobile devices to the first class/tier-1 platform set for Mozilla2. This means the company will make core platform decisions with mobile devices as first-class citizens, according to Mr. Schroepfer’s blog post.
“Up until very recently device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up,” Mr. Schroepfer writes in his blog. “Being able to leverage all the investments in the Mozilla platform across both desktops and devices is the right approach.
“There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance and compatibility,” he said.