March 22nd, 2008
Question to Mozilla CEO: what do you fear?
The kerfuffle over Apple’s decision to include the Safari 3.1 ‘update’ with an iTunes update installer for Windows made me smile. John Lilly, CEO Mozilla Foundation Corp. seems outraged at Apple’s decision. It only adds to the hilarity. Why? In enterprise land, neither browser is likely to be the number one choice down at the PC/laptop image factory. Not even close. Check the stats at W3schools to see what I mean. Mozilla comes in at a miniscule 1.1% 36% while Safari has just hit the 2% mark.
If you’re one of those people that isn’t beholden to IT lock down then Tom Krazit’s headline advice is right on the money. But I’d go further.
What does Mozilla fear? It’s not as if Mozilla Foundation has a market share worth defending except when they’re acting as a Firefox proxy. Even then I’d say compete on your product not by bitching and badmouthing a competitor who, according to Krazit:
Apple made Safari 3.1 a standalone update option, so you can choose to uncheck the box next to the title and download just the iTunes updates. The company tells you exactly what you’re downloading, and offers a link to its site for more information.
It seems to me that in scaremongering on the topic in this manner, Lilly is making not one, but three cardinal errors:
1. Badmouthing the competition (while he claims otherwise)
2. Assuming that users are idiots (of course no-one reads the screens, doh!)
3. Denying choice (something that Mozilla has been eager to foster in the past)
And while I’m in Mozilla flame mode, exactly when will Firefox stop leaking memory like a sieve by default and routinely bringing my machine to a grinding halt? That would be a much better story in my opinion because right now I’d prefer to use Safari, short though it may be on all those Firefox plug-ins, add-ons and themes. Why? Because in enterprise land, performance matters, not all the bells and whistles.
Update: I need to straighten a couple of things out. First up, John Lilly is CEO, Mozilla Corp and not Mozilla Foundation. Second, while the fact I quoted re: Mozilla share is as per the W3Schools figures, Firefox, which Lilly represents, has around a 36% share. My bad. Corrections outlined in the body of the copy.
Dennis Howlett has been providing comment and analysis on enterprise software since 1991. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 03/23/08
