According to the article, the iPhone was ultimately the trigger that finally broke the country's ActiveX dependence, and will thereby open up the desktop browse

According to the article, the iPhone was ultimately the trigger that finally broke the country's ActiveX dependence, and will thereby open up the desktop browser market as a side effect. It's a success story with parallels to Apple's ongoing attempt to break the web's de facto Flash requirement, and to Mozilla's stand to break dependence on non-free video codecs. But Apple and Mozilla's new battles are harder. In toppling ActiveX, the iPhone (and the phones it inspired) got a gift from Windows Mobile, by being so stagnant that it left a huge opening. But the iPhone now has a credible competitor in Android, with newly-minted Flash support. And Mozilla has high-quality competitors that offer H.264 support. (Chrome will support both WebM and H.264, so Google isn't taking the hard-line stance that would follow if they valued breaking H.264 over immediate gains in market share.) For now, Apple has the iPad's market to itself, which gives it great latitude to further weaken Flash. Mozilla is in a more difficult position, so it will be interesting to see what they are able to achieve.