Software Industry

Games of the 2008 Browser Olympiad - Chrome is the new Bronze

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:19:30 GMT

During the course of my day job on the OWA team, I've had the opportunity to play with all the new browsers. I thought I'd share my opinions and see what my fellow web developers think. We already know what Walt Mossberg thinks.

Gold - Firefox 3.0

It's pretty fast, it's pretty stable, has more goodies per square inch than the Halloween candy section at Costco, it runs on every desktop OS that matters and most of the world's web sites support it.

Despite my fondness for Firefox, there's still room for improvements. Firebug 1.2 is so slow it's unusable when dealing with large AJAX applications. It's odd because Firefox runs large web apps fine, but Firebug is still suffering some teething pains right now. However, it looks like the forthcoming Firebug 1.3 will ease my pain in the near future.

Aside from my Firebug issues, I don't like how Firefox 3 deals with self-signed certificates (UI is too cumbersome). Seriously, it takes something like 7 mouse clicks to accept a site with self-signed cert what is 1 or 2 click task in IE & Safari. Another thing that grinds my gears, Firefox's contenteditable implementation rather is rough around the edges, (which probably only effects me & 3 other web developers at the moment). However, despite my gripes, I still like Firefox the best. I just hope they fix their contenteditable bugs in their next release.

Silver - Internet Explorer 8

I've been using Beta 2 lately and I'm pleasantly surprised. It's not Firefox fast, but it's noticeably faster than IE 7 was. It's not the most standards compliant browser, but renders 99% of the web perfectly. It doesn't have the heap fragmentation issues or stability issues that Chrome or Safari seem to. The new development tools seem to be competitive with Firebug, even if the plug in support isn't. If the IE team keeps up the good work, they might be able to stop losing market share to Firefox by the time IE 9 ships.

Despite, the marked improvement, I think IE still has 3 major hurdles they need to clear before they can get gold again.

Openness – The IE blog helps, and I know MS is unlikely to make IE open source, but they should do more. How about giving IE an open bug list like Mozilla's Bugzilla or Webkit's? That way the web developer community knows what bugs exist, is more directly involved with the product evolution, and can help Microsoft by providing feedback, bugs & test cases. For example, when is IE going to allow me to call the IDM_AUTOURLDETECT_MODE command via execCommand in Javascript? Having an HTTP or SMTP address turn into an A tag behind my back, in every single rich text editor I run in IE is really annoying.
Trust – Microsoft killed IE for Mac & Unix permanently. Microsoft put IE for Windows on ice for 4+ years and Windows Mobile IE is so bad that Microsoft's mobile carrier partners are shipping Opera with their Windows Mobile phones! That plan of inaction cost Microsoft at least 5 years of developer good will & untold amounts of credibility. Put simply, Microsoft lost their web client mojo. Maybe Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfeld can help web developers forgive MS of its past sins and they'll get it back.
Leadership – During browser war 1.0, IE was hands down the better browser. During war browser 2.0, IE hasn't yet done anything that Firefox or Chrome hasn't done already or is actively working on. It'd be interesting to see IE will become a leader again or just be a fast follower. At any rate, it's good to see the IE team participating in the browser wars again and sending cakes.

Bronze – Google Chrome

This newcomer shows a lot of promise. It's based on the Webkit rendering engine, so that's a good thing. Granted, I still feel Trident & Gecko are still better from an end user app compatibility, developer tool support & plug-in support stand point (despite their comparatively lower ACID scores), but at least they get the benefit of Apple's Safari work to date and WebKit has good standards support. It's one of the fastest browsers I've used. It's lets you use add search engines easily (I've added Live just to mess w/ the Google-ites). The Chrome comic was a cool introduction to Chome's features.

All in all, I'm impressed. It proves that Google knows more about Windows app development than Apple does. The ultimate test will be if they steel Microsoft's or Mozilla's browser market share. I don't think it'll happen in the near future, but this baby has potential.

4^th place – Opera 9.5

It's a nice browser to use and frankly it deserves a larger share than it has. Unfortunately, since the rise of Firefox, the reincarnation of IE, and the birth of Chrome, I can't think of a compelling reason to use it instead of one of the leaders. OK, it is currently the best web browser for Windows Mobile, but Mozilla & Microsoft are working on changing that story. It's developer tool & add-on support has improved in recent releases, but it's still not competitive with the Top 2. Oh well, it's got a bigger following in Europe and it's been around since the first browser war.

5^th place – Apple Safari 3.1.2

On Windows, Safari has all of Chrome's faults and too few of its virtues. The font rendering is fuzzier than a beanie baby. The UI controls stick out like a Pink Tony Romo Cowboys jersey at an NFC East road game. I can't add other search engines to it which sucks rocks (not be confused with sucks-rocks). Google Chrome let's me add Windows Live, but yet can't Apple bundle something like Inquisitor with Safari for Windows so I can't easily search Windows Live, Wikipedia or Amazon (LAME)? Then again, Apple isn't known for their high quality Windows applications.

OK, if you want to test your apps on Safari without buying a Mac dongle or an iPhone, use Safari for Widows. Aside from that, nobody who uses Windows is going to use it as their preferred browser.

The Internet Super Bowl - Microsoft Giants vs Google Patriots

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:04:06 GMT

When, I first heard about Microsoft's $40+ billion (1/2 cash + 1/2 stock) offer to buy Yahoo, my first reaction what similar to Mini Microsoft's. To put that figure into perspective, that's enough to buy over 2,000 Trulias (at $20 million each) or 500 Zillows (at $80 million each). That number is like visiting the Boeing factory in Everett, after seeing it; you just walk away with a sense of awe.

Put another way, it will drain Microsoft of its cash reserves and put the company into debt for the first time in its history. Fortunately, Microsoft earned about nearly $17 billion last year in income, so I suspect Microsoft has an excellent credit rating w/ the banks. Perhaps, the low interest rates and the upcoming recession also factored into Microsoft's decision.

However, during the past week or so, I've come to the conclusion that desperate times call for desperate measures, and great rewards sometimes only come with great risks and regardless of how it turns out, it'll be a great story to be taught in business schools for generations to come… Perhaps, the idea isn't as crazy as it sounds…

Wall Street knows Google is only human – After Google's last quarterly earnings report, the share price plunged by $40 / share. Granted, Microsoft's chart for the past 3 months doesn't look much better. But the fact that Google has shown a marked deceleration in paid click growth and difficulties with moving social network inventory, shows it is still a one trick pony (albeit one with a $150 billion market cap). Furthermore, Google still doesn't have any enterprise street credibility and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Microsoft knows Google is only human – For years Microsoft has invested heavily in search, and technology wise I think Microsoft is finally starting to catch up. Note: catching up technologically is NOT the same is catching up in market share, traffic, and perception (that takes much longer). For the past year, I've found MS Live & Google to be roughly equivalent, or Google to be slightly better. However, to beat entrenched competitors, you need to deliver superior products, not just equivalents.

Earlier this week, I finally ran into a situation in which the search results Live returned were not only better than Google, but significantly so. I was looking for more information on Content Delivery Networks (CDN as us web geeks call them), and Google gave me a bunch irrelevant information on the Canadian Champions League, and random Canadian food/drug related topics (Canadian Viagra anyone?). Google earned a perfect 0 out of 10 on relevance. Microsoft's results weren't perfect, but 7 of the top 10 results were related to the topic I was interested in and the unrelated topics were less random. I was shocked Google would screw up this badly. Google should know that 1) I'm a software geek 2) 90% of my searches are on geek related topics, and 3) it should have a bias toward geek related things, all things being equal, because Google is at its heart, a company run by software geeks.

BTW – My search on Yahoo, included information on CDs (Compact Discs) & CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) and allowed to me filter my back to my original query. The filtered results were roughly equivalent in relevance to Microsoft's, so I'd give Yahoo a good grade as well. Granted, this was just one obscure search out of billions possible, but the fact Google fumbled something so badly, that usually it nails was a bit, how should I say it, encouraging for those of us who don't want to see Google own the internet.

Google knows Microsoft + Yahoo could beat them (or more likely, force them to start playing defense) – I didn't say Microsoft + Yahoo will beat them. Heck, the Yahoo + Microsoft merger is probably the best thing to happen Larry Ellison in the past 5 years. It might end up being the best thing that ever happened to Google too. One thing is certain, separately, Microsoft & Yahoo will not catch up to Google. Google has a critical mass that Microsoft & Yahoo separately do not.

But if Darth Brin finds the takeover unnerving and Google's head lawyer is publically whining about the deal, perhaps the Microsofties in Redmond & the Yahoos Sunnyvale, should be a little more optimistic about their chances and open minded about the possibilities. Granted, I completely agree with the skeptics that Google is going play the anti-trust poker game to the best of its ability, integrating Yahoo's alien technology w/ Microsoft's is going to be huge challenge, and finding a way to keep Yahoo's best brands and talent (while simultaneously, not destroying Microsoft's) is a marketing & HR nightmare.

Will Google lose? Probably not, but to paraphrase the wise Steve Jobs "Google doesn't have to lose in order for Microsoft to win." I'll put it another way, I'd take the Giants and the points because they are much better team than some people give them credit for. I believe Microsoft (w/ Yahoo's help) can put Google on the defensive, for the first time, and keep them honest. And if this doesn't work, at least Microsoft can go into the locker room knowing they left it all on the field and gave it their best shot.

At any rate, get'cha your popcorn ready. It's going to be one hell of a show, just like SuperBowl XLII was.