The Open Road

In many markets, open source has played catch-up for years to the proprietary incumbents. Now, however, open source is taking the lead in areas as diverse as operating systems (Linux), browsers (Firefox), and databases (MySQL).

Oddly, given the ubiquity of e-mail, we've never seen a really good open-source e-mail client. Mozilla wants to change that with Thunderbird.

Mozilla's track record with its hugely popular Firefox Web browser suggests that it may have more than a sporting chance, despite a mostly unproductive history with e-mail. Thunderbird, Mozilla's e-mail client, has been around since 2003, with almost no market share to show for its nearly seven years of development.

Could it be that Thunderbird has been a victim of Firefox's success? If so, has anything changed to suggest that Thunderbird is ready to innovate and lead, as Firefox has done?

The answer is a qualified but optimistic "yes." Mozilla just released Thunderbird 3, and early reports suggest that it's a keeper. CNET, for example, lauds Thunderbird's search capabilities ("Microsoft Outlook doesn't offer anything that comes close to the level of granular control that Mozilla has given Thunderbird users"), among other things, and declares that it "rates as a top-notch e-mail client, and it's definitely the best freeware one around."

Sexiest nun in the convent?

Or perhaps inaccurate?

It may be true that Thunderbird is the best open-source e-mail client, though as an avid and enthusiastic user of Zimbra, I'm not convinced.

Regardless, in terms of freeware...I'm not so sure. After all, while not exactly freeware, Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail are both excellent e-mail clients, and come free...with the purchase of other hardware or software.

But who cares about the client at all? Apparently not Microsoft or Apple, whose e-mail clients have barely budged in terms of innovation in years. They're great products, but they're still essentially the same as they were when I started using them at the beginning of the decade.

Only Zimbra really pushes the innovation envelope because it puts more power in the server than in the client. Given how the world is moving to the Web, shouldn't Mozilla, too, be focusing its development efforts on the server, rather than the client?

Mozilla CEO John Lilly insists that the foundation is doing just that, focusing on both server and client innovation. According to Mozilla Messaging lead David Ascher, Mozilla will be investing heavily in add-on innovation, similar to Firefox, that keeps the platform agile while enriching Thunderbird's functionality. Such add-ons will take advantage of advances in both the client and server.

It sounds promising and comes with a real monetary commitment from Mozilla. The foundation now has 60 people working on messaging, compared with just two back in the early days.

I first used Thunderbird four or five years ago and found it weak. I'm going to give it another try to see if it can replace Apple Mail as my client of choice for personal e-mail. Given Mozilla's impressive track record in browsers and its newfound commitment to e-mail, it may be time for you to check it out, too. Let me know what you think.

Update at 5:06 AM on 12/10/09: I originally repeated reports that Mozilla now has 60 people working on Thunderbird. David Ascher, Mozilla Messaging chief, contacted me to say that this number had been misreported by The Register. The number is actually 16. My apologies for the confusion.

There was a time when Microsoft could skimp on Internet Explorer innovation. Having trounced its Netscape rival, Microsoft rested on its IE laurels for years, barely updating the browser.

Today, Microsoft can't afford to rest on any laurels, least of all with IE.

In part this is due to rising competition. The open-source Mozilla Firefox browser, for example, now tops 24 percent market share and it, along with the Google Chrome browser, and Apple's Safari browser, regularly push well beyond IE's comparatively glacial development.

However, the biggest challenge to Microsoft's IE development inertia is Microsoft itself. As Mozilla's Asa Dotzler posits:

That [IE] team has some really strong people and they're not going to let another release go by where they're still seen as badly trailing. Not with Office moving to the Web. Not with Search and other web services becoming huge revenue opportunities.

Falling short with IE 9 would be the last straw for Web developers' little remaining faith in Microsoft and so they won't miss this opportunity.

The browser used to be a sideshow to Microsoft's Windows and Office cash cows. In the future, however, the browser is the gateway to the next generation of Microsoft dominance...or irrelevance.

As the world moves online, how well Microsoft delivers an innovative browser experience will largely determine the future of the company.

At the same time, how well Mozilla delivers a neutral, innovative Firefox is the industry's best defense against Microsoft and Google too tightly coupling their browsers to their Web services.

It's therefore time for Facebook, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, and others with a vested interest in an open gateway to an open Web to put their development resources where their mouths are. Contribute to Firefox. Microsoft (and Google) has an interest in building a better browser, yes, but to ensure that browser runs others' services as well as Microsoft's, Microsoft must be kept honest.

Firefox is the best way to accomplish this.

Mozilla isn't just about browsing anymore.

While the foundation made its name with the increasingly popular open-source Firefox browser, it is quickly moving beyond its roots, particularly in the area of e-mail. With the launch of Raindrop, its Google Wave-like unified messaging and collaboration system, as well as corporate uptake of Thunderbird, Mozilla may soon extend its reach well beyond its browser base.

Corporate America hasn't done much with Mozilla's Thunderbird, a competitor to Microsoft Outlook. Europe, however, has given it a warm reception. For example, the French tax authority recently selected Thunderbird to power 130,000 of its personal computers, replacing IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook.

It's a massive deal for Mozilla, though in the grand scheme of things, it's still tiny. Even so, it's an indication that Mozilla's e-mail story is credible, and could lead to greater adoption of Thunderbird and, eventually, Raindrop.

Much of Firefox's early traction was in Europe. The same could hold true for Thunderbird and Raindrop.

The question for me, however, is how it gets funded. Google has essentially funded Mozilla's browser development for years. It's unclear who the "Google" is for Mozilla's messaging ambitions, or whether the foundation intends to sell subscriptions to use the software through its for-profit corporation.

Regardless, Mozilla's presence in the messaging market is welcome. While we already have an exceptional open-source competitor to Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino in Zimbra, given the importance of messaging and collaboration to enterprise computing, it's useful to have an open-source foundation involved, too. About the only organizations that won't like this increased competition are the proprietary incumbents.

If you're a Mac user with a need for speed, you'll struggle to find a better browser than Mozilla's Camino. Apple's Safari will win a drag race, but it lacks the customizability that comes with an open-source browser like Camino. Unfortunately, both Safari and Camino fall incredibly short against Firefox because both are heavy on speed and light on community.

For those who want a highly optimized, lightning fast browsing experience on the Mac, you can't do much better than Camino, as TechCrunch writes. But most of us want more than that. We want Adblock Plus to filter out ads from our browsing experience. We want Bitly Preview to be able to launch and track tweets from the browser. And more.

Sure, you can "PimpMyCamino," but you won't get nearly the level of detailing that comes with Firefox's impressive community. It's not hard, technically, to migrate from Firefox to Camino, but in the move you're going to end up losing most of the add-ons that make Firefox so powerful.

Camino has ad-blocking functionality built into the browser, and you can find an array of themes to dress it up. But really, the primary reason to use Camino is if you want raw speed. But if that's all you want, Safari is likely a better choice, given the somewhat limited customizations and add-ons available for Camino. Or Google Chrome, which hasn't fully launched on the Mac yet but promises a big speed boost once it does.

Browsing is about more than speed. Firefox delivers a global community with a diverse array of needs and solutions, which is why it remains my preferred browser, even as Camino sprints by, unadorned.

Mozilla's Firefox has maintained its steady ascent against Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the global browser market, hitting 22.98 percent vs. IE's 66.97 percent.

However, Sony has now given Google's Chrome browser something that Mozilla has struggled to obtain: a preinstall deal. As CNET reports, Google Chrome is being installed on Windows PCs alongside IE, with other distribution deals likely.

Finally, a clear choice for consumers.

Google Chrome still accounts for less than 3 percent of the global browser market, but it has something that even Firefox can't match: a dominant, global consumer brand. Google Chrome isn't interesting to Sony because of its market share in Web browsers, but rather because of its overall consumer brand coupled with steady innovation in browsers.

Intriguingly, this Chrome deal opens up the possibility that Sony, as well as other computer manufacturers, will eventually sign on to ship Google Chrome OS, Google's Netbook-optimized Linux operating system.

At the same time, this move may open the door for Mozilla to snag its own preinstall deal(s) with competitors to Sony, who will also likely want to buy into Google's brand but may prefer the Firefox option, given its wider adoption. Firefox users have been pressuring major hardware vendors to preinstall Firefox for years, but the best Mozilla has done is to get Firefox preinstalled with Linux-based notebooks and Netbooks.

That's hardly something to cheer about, given the small share of Linux in mobile personal computers.

This Google Chrome preinstall leaves an opening for Mozilla, but to capitalize on it Mozilla must improve its message. It has recently been claiming that we're hitting a "seat-belt moment" in which browser security could lead to consumers flocking to Firefox. But it's hard to get excited about browser security, no matter how important it is.

Much more interesting are Mozilla's plans to update its browser to 4.0 by the end of 2010 and to release Fennec, its mobile browser, before the end of 2009, according to TG Daily. Extending Firefox to my mobile device? That is something consumers can get excited about which, in turn, should stir up interest from hardware vendors that are looking to bridge their smartphone and laptop strategies.

Back to Sony. Its open-source credentials have been called into question due to its rootkit debacle and decision to restrict Linux on the PlayStation 3, but this new decision to preinstall Chrome should redeem it with the open-source community and give Sony a ready-made marketing machine.

The browser market, already competitive, just became even more so. Google is at the top of its game right now, but so is Mozilla. Microsoft, for its part, is reportedly holding meetings in D.C. that some Beltway insiders have dubbed as "screw Google" gatherings. But Microsoft probably should be spending more time developing innovative browser solutions to compete with Google and Mozilla.

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It was announced Monday that smartphone maker Research in Motion had acquired Torch Mobile, a provider of browsers and other applications based on the open-source WebKit project. Though Webkit has become the unofficial standard for mobile browsers, as Don Reisinger reports, it seems to be a largely Apple-controlled open-source community, one that has the potential to leave RIM, Palm, Google, and other WebKit users constantly playing catch-up to Apple.

Is WebKit open source? Absolutely. But is it truly an open, level playing field for RIM and other would-be competitors to Apple? Likely not.

Yes, there are other developers from Nokia, Torch Mobile, and Google involved with the project, but Apple controls the project, if by no other means than sheer numbers. Apple employs the majority of WebKit developers (30), with Google coming in second (19). Torch Mobile? It employs just eight of the WebKit development team members.

More pertinently, Apple employs far more of the WebKit reviewers than anyone else, which gives it much more control. Most of the other participants are committers, which are important but not equal in control to reviewers.

I've even heard that WebKit is not accepting outside contributions at present, though I have not yet been able to verify this.

Not that you need to look too deeply to see Apple's grip on the project. Just look at the logo:

Look familiar? It should. Here's Apple's logo for its Safari browser, which is based on the WebKit project:

Coincidence? Um...no. After all, the WebKit blog is called (get this): "Surfin' Safari. Think the blog is going to change its name anytime soon to "Surfin' RIM"? Don't hold your breath.

As the proud owner of four MacBook Pros and three iPhones, I'm not bashing Apple. I love what it produces.

But if part of RIM's interest in Torch Mobile was influence in the WebKit project, it could have saved its money. WebKit, for better or worse, is largely an Apple project, with serious support from Google. For everyone else, WebKit may be the best game in town, but it's Apple's town. It almost certainly will result in a better Blackberry browser for RIM customers, but not one that RIM has as much control over as it would like.

There are some technologies that make less and less sense as proprietary software. The browser is one of them. With Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome actively gaining at Internet Explorer's expense on the "desktop," it would be nice to see a truly open-source project--open in source, and open to outside involvement--standardize the mobile browsing experience, too.

There's Mozilla's Fennec, of course, but its development has been slow. WebKit may be the best option for RIM and others, but it would be an even better option if Apple took its hands off the wheel to open up the project further.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

If "only the paranoid survive," as former Intel CEO Andy Grove used to say, then Mozilla, the organization behind the open-source Firefox browser, needs to put its paranoia on overdrive.

That's the sense I got reading through Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady's billet-doux to Chromium, the open-source project behind the Google Chrome browser. O'Grady has long been friendly to Mozilla and a dedicated user of Firefox. When his head is turned by another browser, it's time for concern.

Yes, Firefox continues to grow its market share, now sitting comfortably at 22.47 percent, while Chrome is far behind at 2.59 percent. But O'Grady is an influencer (even if he has yet to persuade me to adopt the Linux "desktop"), and his reasons for preferring Chrome are important:

The open source version of Chrome is far from perfect; the recently enabled plugins which permit the usage of Flash and so on are regularly disabled and/or non-functional, the rendering engine still has its occasional issues, and too many poorly designed browser-sniffing sites give it a hard time. But it's just so damned fast. And speed is not just a feature, but a feature I prioritize.

Not in the rendering. Although its from-scratch V8 Javascript engine definitely gives sites like Google Docs a boost, I've found Firefox 3.5's counterpart, Tracemonkey, very competitive on most sites. But that's where the good news ends for Firefox.

In virtually every other sense, Chromium outperforms Firefox. Google's browser launches more quickly, features snappier tab creation and--perhaps most importantly--doesn't bog down after prolonged usage. And while the performance gains when measured might seem minute...they really add up over time.

As O'Grady notes, his observations apply to the Linux versions of Chrome and Firefox, but they still should give Mozilla pause.

In this little war, however, perhaps Microsoft is taking Firefox's side, at least against Google. As The Register reports, Microsoft Office Web Apps, due out in 2010, will support Firefox and other "familiar Web browsers," which doesn't include Chrome, Safari (for Windows), or Opera. Apparently, Microsoft will only be supporting those browsers that don't have an operating system competitor attached to them.

The browser market has become hugely competitive and, as a result, more innovative and much more interesting. I'm confident the Mozilla team will respond to Chrome's apparent speed advantages, but equally confident that Google, Apple, and Microsoft will work just as hard to outflank Mozilla and the other browser competitors in other ways.

All of which is good for you and for me as we enjoy the results of the competition. Now if we could just get this level of competition in all areas of software.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Net Applications has finally published its browser market share numbers for July, and the results are surprising. Given European summer holidays and Mozilla Firefox's large user base in Europe (35 percent market share), Firefox should be seeing a significant decline in market share through the summer months.

But it isn't.

Instead, as detailed below, Firefox market share continues to hold steady at 22.47 percent, while Internet Explorer also treads water at 67.68 percent. Only Safari (4.07 percent) and Google Chrome (2.59 percent) show appreciable, sustained growth over the past few months.

With Firefox recently surpassing its one-billionth download, we should see rising market share in the fall, unless back-to-school PC sales give IE a bump.

But I don't think IE will win over the student crowd, which is more likely to be a Mac (Safari) crowd than a Microsoft one. And so I suspect we'll continue to see Firefox (along with Safari and Chrome) rising against IE.

After all, eventually even the Griswalds come home and get back to work. When they do, more and more will be using Firefox.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

It's a good thing that Mozilla is profitable, because the open-source foundation would likely struggle to get venture funding.

For any Sand Hill venture capitalist, Mozilla fails to tick any of the correct boxes. While it does have a world-class development organization, Mozilla also relies on an external, unpaid workforce to contribute up to 40 percent of its code. Also, 88 percent of its revenues come from one source, Google, which also happens to be a competitor.

Speaking of competitors, it has three big ones--gargantuan ones. Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Tell a VC that you want to go up against one of these and you're likely to be turned away. Tell them you want to take on all three and, well, they might just make a full-on sprint for the safety of their Aston Martins.

And yet, Mozilla may be superbly positioned to compete with these big competitors precisely because it isn't anything like them: at its core, Mozilla is a nonprofit foundation that wants to save the world more than it wants to make a buck.

The New York Times highlights Mozilla's challenges in a searching review, but it falls just short of highlighting the fact that Mozilla's success derives from its unique mission, which encourages broad development and adoption, and is a direct byproduct of its nonprofit structure.

Because it is a nonprofit, Mozilla can lobby governments differently, and it has. Because it is a nonprofit, Mozilla can focus on delivering an unparalleled user experience, not on figuring out how to monetize the Web, hardware, etc.

Because it is a nonprofit, Mozilla can be truly disruptive in a way that its competitors cannot.

I'm sure there's not a day that goes by that John Lilly, Mitchell Baker, and the other Mozilla executives and employees don't wish that they had the resources their biggest competitors do. I'm equally sure there's not a day that goes by that they don't benefit from the decisions their resource constraints force upon them.

Firefox is as good as it is because of all that Mozilla has...and has not.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.