4 ms·

Mozilla really needs to step up its game and start innovating, a technically "superior" browser won't make it gain market share against Google, Microsoft and Ap

Mozilla really needs to step up its game and start innovating, a technically "superior" browser won't make it gain market share against Google, Microsoft and Apple, these three have powerful platforms to promote their browsers, what does Mozilla have? Firefox's usage is declining every day at a fast pace. I'm amazed to see how much average Joe users have Chrome installed with no help from anyone. Edit: Want to add that I wasn't taking a stab a Servo, which is a truly awesome project on its own no matter what's going with Mozilla.

pcwalton 11y ago
This is a truly bizarre comment. Can you elaborate as to how Servo is not "innovating"?
- Scarbutt 11y ago
  With the "innovating" part I was talking about Mozilla in general, not Servo. Servo is innovating in the web browser space, no doubt about that, but will that really be enough for Mozilla to compete with others browsers which have big platforms supporting them? I'm talking from a business angle here.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    It's important to remember that Servo is just a research project at this point. A lot of hopes are behind it for the future, but in terms of engineering resources it's not been any sort of significant drain on Mozilla's other efforts.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    The only charitable interpretations of this comment I can figure out are either "Mozilla shouldn't bother improving its core technology because it's doomed anyway" or "Mozilla should build a 'native' OS stack to push its browser", which are gratuitous negativity and off-topic/silly, respectively.
bobajeff 11y ago
Mozilla has tried to enter the OS space with Firefox OS. Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out so well for them so far. Entering a mature market with a new product often winds up a fruitless effort. I think they'll have a better shot with new categories like Smart Watches, Smart Mini MP3 Players and those Smart Flip Phones/Sliders. Android is having major issues entering those categories for quite some time so that leaves a good opening for competition. Another thing they can do is to build their own phone. Make it the best phone that they possibly can and support it for 5-10 years. With the only revisions making it smaller and cheaper but otherwise the same (ie. same architecture but miniaturized). Even if during those 5-10 years it's not seen uptake Mozilla will have built up a unmatched reputation for supporting their devices. So when the successor is announced...

pcwalton 11y ago

This is a truly bizarre comment. Can you elaborate as to how Servo is not "innovating"?

Scarbutt 11y ago
With the "innovating" part I was talking about Mozilla in general, not Servo. Servo is innovating in the web browser space, no doubt about that, but will that really be enough for Mozilla to compete with others browsers which have big platforms supporting them? I'm talking from a business angle here.
- magicalist 11y ago
  It's important to remember that Servo is just a research project at this point. A lot of hopes are behind it for the future, but in terms of engineering resources it's not been any sort of significant drain on Mozilla's other efforts.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  The only charitable interpretations of this comment I can figure out are either "Mozilla shouldn't bother improving its core technology because it's doomed anyway" or "Mozilla should build a 'native' OS stack to push its browser", which are gratuitous negativity and off-topic/silly, respectively.

bobajeff 11y ago

Mozilla has tried to enter the OS space with Firefox OS. Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out so well for them so far. Entering a mature market with a new product often winds up a fruitless effort. I think they'll have a better shot with new categories like Smart Watches, Smart Mini MP3 Players and those Smart Flip Phones/Sliders. Android is having major issues entering those categories for quite some time so that leaves a good opening for competition. Another thing they can do is to build their own phone. Make it the best phone that they possibly can and support it for 5-10 years. With the only revisions making it smaller and cheaper but otherwise the same (ie. same architecture but miniaturized). Even if during those 5-10 years it's not seen uptake Mozilla will have built up a unmatched reputation for supporting their devices. So when the successor is announced...