Firefox: Gates’ worst nightmare?
p2p news / p2pnet: Microsoft’s Bill Gates had better start taking notes, believes The Daily Telegraph.
Why so?
Because, Mozilla’s FireFox browser has, "gobbled up market share at the expense of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which has been riddled with security problems for years and does not have the same function-ality as Firefox," says the story.
"Firefox is not just a good product; being an open-source creation immediately gives it an anti-corporate kudos among internet users."
Unlike Microsoft, "which employs a legion of highly paid software engineers," Mozilla, "relies on a small internal team and the goodwill and hard work of tens of thousands of unpaid volunteers to create its products," The Daily Telegraph says.
"Profit, dividends and returns on investment do not enter the equation." This means Mozilla leader Mitchell Baker, "is quite possibly Bill Gates’s worst nightmare".
She’s the head of the Mozilla Foundation whose Firefox now has an estimated 50,000,000 users world-wide and an estimated 15% of the global browser market.
"The reason you may not have heard of Mozilla is that it has no shareholders, no investors and no directors on multi-million dollar salaries," the story says, going on:
But there’s a but.
"Despite its success, however, Mozilla’s fans are becoming increasingly concerned that the organisation is moving away from its altruistic roots and becoming a fully fledged money-making operation," The Daily Telegraph adds, pointing out the next Internet Explorer has many features inspired by Firefox.
That may be so. But Bill and the Boyz may be trying to close the gate as the horse gallops into the sunset.
A new public alpha of Firefox 2 is now online.
Code-named Bon Echo, it’s nowhere near ready for prime-time, "but it is smokin’ hot fast on my Powerbook, easily twice as fast at managing tabs and tab-switches as the current Firefox," enthuses Cory Doctorow.
Also See:
The Daily Telegraph – Firefox snaps at Microsoft’s heels, May 28, 2006
smokin’ hot fast – Smoking fast Firefox 2 alpha is out , May 20, 2006
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May 29th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
“Despite its success, however, Mozilla’s fans are becoming increasingly concerned that the organisation is moving away from its altruistic roots and becoming a fully fledged money-making operation,” The Daily Telegraph adds, pointing out the next Internet Explorer has many features inspired by Firefox.
Somehow the story is incomplete, and I think it’s because of this statement. Is there any basis for it?
May 29th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
If some open source tries to move in the direction of “over priced experiments on the public” folks will just jump in and create something better and the old will be put on the shelf with the Microsoft products. Hasta la Vista baby!
May 29th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Linus Torvalds and Linux are MS’ worst nightmare, not Firefox. Yes FF market share may be 15%, but a lot of people still run it on Windows, whereas people tinkering with Linux are people who are already thinking about migtrating from Windows to Linux. Running a Linux Desktop gets easier by the minute. As soon as Linux distros achieve cross compatibility, and more hardware vendors, not just nVidia, decide to take Linux seriously and release drivers for Linux, Ballmer and Co. wil crap their pants. It’ll be… Redmond, we’ve got a problem.
May 29th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Check out http://www.firefoxie.net and the
eFox Web Browser customization.
Very Cool
May 29th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I don’t think I need to. WhenI hear about firefoxie on my trusted channels, maybe I will check it out, meanwhile, I don’t know what’s on the other side. Better paranoid than sorry.
May 30th, 2006 at 2:21 am
Against Bill Gates IE-Explorer I went farer than a law-suite focussing the 5 year battle between Caldera and IBM. With law-enforcement You never get the slightest compensation for financial loss.
The European Union under the commissioneer Mario Monti never received the fine/penalty from Bill Gates. This demonstrates what a corrupt justice system we have. To Firefox exists a workbench so that if You ever encounter a flaw You can correct it. This is in IE even if You buy an extraordinary expensive IE software developpement kit
by no means the case. Short & decisif conclusion:Throw the
uneducated Bill Gates in a correction camp without any possibility of a bail until he payed the charged facturation I sent him more than
twice.
Postskriptum: I will not wait too much longer but will soon fetch him wherever he goes.
May 30th, 2006 at 4:09 am
http://www.firefoxmyths.com
That is Myth that Firefox does not make money:
“The Mozilla Corporation pays its employees from the revenues we receive from our product. We are very fortunate in that the search feature in Firefox is both appreciated by our users and generates revenue in the tens of millions of dollars.”
May 30th, 2006 at 4:35 am
We? Do you work for the Mozilla Fo/Co? If you do, should you be talking about Firefox myths?
May 30th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
“…hardware vendors… tak[ing] Linux seriously and releas[ing] drivers for Linux…”
This is, IMHO THE linchpin issue for Linux. The MS driver layer is the ONLY thing keeping MANY people from making the switch. The good ol’ boy cabal of big player hardware and software manufacturers will make that a tough nut. Perhaps not uncrackable, but tough…
A significant percentage of the public using an OS that is not corporate controlled? That is a “worst nightmare” for most big business and world governments.
May 30th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Anybody who thinks “foundations”, “charitys”, “non-profits”, “open source projects”, “freeware”, etc… automatically means no cash flow and no paid employees needs to get out from under their rock a little more often.
The word “Corporation” in “Mozilla Corporation” is one dead givaway…