4 ms·

I had a chat with an MS guy who had some insight on this issue. There was some internal discussion about it, but there were 2 issues re: firefox which led them

I had a chat with an MS guy who had some insight on this issue. There was some internal discussion about it, but there were 2 issues re: firefox which led them against it (and they're somewhat related). Firstly, I'm paraphrasing here, but FF isn't as much a business as it is a religion (re: privacy). You can read a lot in to that, but I understood the gist of what they were getting at. Secondly, somewhat relatedly, but consider FF's primary funding/revenue: it's Google. MS building on FF could mean Google would reduce their search deal, meaning MS might end up being forced in to increasing their funding for FF to help keep it an entity capable of operating at its current size. Or, FF simply becomes smaller, and MS has tied themselves with a shrinking partner. However you look at it, MS has not had a good run in promoting their own browser tech against competitors, and ends up losing share, so why fight that?

Fnoord 8y ago
You could argue Google is a religion for some people. Google Chrome is the popular browser. And doesn't #2 apply on Google Chrome as well? > However you look at it, MS has not had a good run in promoting their own browser tech against competitors [...] Recently, yes. Because they screwed up their MSIE market dominance with embrace & extend. With which market dominance they put the WWW in a dark age of incompatibility. From which Mozilla and Firefox (and Konqueror, Safari, and Google Chrome) eventually flourished.
- lowercased 8y ago
  > You could argue Google is a religion for some people It's also concurrently a massively profitable business.
realusername 8y ago
> Secondly, somewhat relatedly, but consider FF's primary funding/revenue: it's Google I don't get that one because Chromium IS Google, it's not even a primary funding, there's just no separation between the two. They just handed the web business directly to their competitors, no matter how they try to spin it. At least with Firefox, MS could still have influenced the web, with Chromium, there's just no way, they are insuring that MS will have no influence whatsoever and Google is even closer to a monopoly.
- saurik 8y ago
  The difference is that Google can't decrease the funding to Chromium to harm Microsoft "because Chromium IS Google".
- kerng 8y ago
  With Chromium they have much stronger cards. It already starts- they are decoupling Chromium from Google services and leverage the core. They are adding features missing in Chromium. Many if these changes Google will have to consider also or look like they dont have their consumers interest at heart and lose share. Certainly a brilliant move by Microsoft, since 0 money is made by the browser itself it really doesn't matter to them.
treis 8y ago
I think that's reading too much into it. They're ditching Edge/IE because they lost the browser wars. Switching to Firefox, who did worse than Edge/IE in that war doesn't make sense. You're just trading one loser for a worse loser.
- lowercased 8y ago
  It's not 'reading in to it' so much as relaying the gist of a conversation I had with someone fairly high up in the browser team who was privy to the decision making process. I specifically asked about FF and he gave some of the main internal back and forth arguments (though I've certainly distilled it down!)

Fnoord 8y ago

You could argue Google is a religion for some people. Google Chrome is the popular browser. And doesn't #2 apply on Google Chrome as well? > However you look at it, MS has not had a good run in promoting their own browser tech against competitors [...] Recently, yes. Because they screwed up their MSIE market dominance with embrace & extend. With which market dominance they put the WWW in a dark age of incompatibility. From which Mozilla and Firefox (and Konqueror, Safari, and Google Chrome) eventually flourished.

lowercased 8y ago
> You could argue Google is a religion for some people It's also concurrently a massively profitable business.

realusername 8y ago

> Secondly, somewhat relatedly, but consider FF's primary funding/revenue: it's Google I don't get that one because Chromium IS Google, it's not even a primary funding, there's just no separation between the two. They just handed the web business directly to their competitors, no matter how they try to spin it. At least with Firefox, MS could still have influenced the web, with Chromium, there's just no way, they are insuring that MS will have no influence whatsoever and Google is even closer to a monopoly.

saurik 8y ago
The difference is that Google can't decrease the funding to Chromium to harm Microsoft "because Chromium IS Google".
kerng 8y ago
With Chromium they have much stronger cards. It already starts- they are decoupling Chromium from Google services and leverage the core. They are adding features missing in Chromium. Many if these changes Google will have to consider also or look like they dont have their consumers interest at heart and lose share. Certainly a brilliant move by Microsoft, since 0 money is made by the browser itself it really doesn't matter to them.

treis 8y ago

I think that's reading too much into it. They're ditching Edge/IE because they lost the browser wars. Switching to Firefox, who did worse than Edge/IE in that war doesn't make sense. You're just trading one loser for a worse loser.

lowercased 8y ago
It's not 'reading in to it' so much as relaying the gist of a conversation I had with someone fairly high up in the browser team who was privy to the decision making process. I specifically asked about FF and he gave some of the main internal back and forth arguments (though I've certainly distilled it down!)