Google pays $140 Million a year to Firefox to be the search default. Given the choice, I believe they would prefer to keep the $140 Million and just have people use Chrome.
24 karma · joined April 27, 2011
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
Google naturally has the choice to indemnify Android distributors and protect them from patent infringement. Google chooses not to do this, presumably because they do not want to expose themselves to the costs of direct patent infringement.
And even devices with the same version of Android will have differences.
Overall, I have to say, I am a huge fan of having these thorough tests come to web standards. So that browsers can't just say "We support HTML5". I am really tired of the buzzword nature of standards recently. Hopefully, this will get all browsers to step up their game.
IE 10 only fails 7 tests compared to 200 for Firefox 5 out of a total of 10000 tests.
I don't use Opera, but according to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript Opera lags the other browser and fails 3000 tests. Does anyone have Opera and willing to run the conformance test here: http://test262.ecmascript.org/
Your argument about Intranet apps not coded to standards seems circular. If browsers (like Firefox) don't implement the standards properly, then how can Intranet apps code to standards? It has to start with browsers.
I haven't heard a persuasive argument for enterprises to change their web development practice and bear significantly higher testing costs. So my expectation is that they will continue on the path that they have been on traditionally.
It's worse in most cases as there aren't fully built out tests, so it's even more difficult to converge implementations to the specifications.
If there had been something subtantial in 5, it might have worked. But it seemed more like an update for the sake of versioning.
They could probably have gotten away with this later, but first turn of the crank just opens them up for complaints.
What you are really paying for is the inbetween places. If those don't matter, then you are all set.
As an example. Run something like Test 262(http://test262.ecmascript.org/) which is the official test suite for JavaScript 5 and you'll see how many compatibilitiy issues there are just for this single spec in Firefox. It's in the hundreds.
Anyone of these could potentially break an app. And that is just for one of the many specs in Firefox.
Two problems: forgettable & undifferentiated. Seems like this applies to just about every technology company out there. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, ...
But their strategy would indicate that they wouldn't implement federation. They would create their own closed system. Facebook is all about growing the value of their social graph, but with very limited interconnection or federation.
The fundamental problems as I see it just starting with user persective: 1) I put in effort as a user to create a deal - with the high chance of no payoff - why would I ever do this the first time, let alone the second time 2) I have to wait for other people to join - so gratification is at best delayed 3) Very likely the deal will not be accepted by the merchant.
The ideal model for coupons would be take out the high cost of sales in this business. And getting businesses to go to a website and submit their deals by themselves. Of course SMB are notoriously slow to adopt new technology (many still advertise in YP). But over time, they will get there as well and the winner will be whoever is there when SMB begin making the move.
Facebook seems like the only company that can bring a real network of users to something like this. Google has GMail, but they haven't been able to translate it into any type of social experience at scale.
The Microsoft and Skype deal just received regulatory approval on June 17th from FTC. There may be still be other regulatory hurdles to still pass in other regions.
The events in the article happened before that and it is unlikely that Skype would receive direction from Microsoft prior to closing.
Further, this is not Microsoft's first acquisition and the pattern is more consistent with PE than Microsoft.
If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be very interested.
On the cost side - There is an increasing investment across the board by other browser vendors. Coupled with more extensive marketing.
On the revenue side - They have negligeble share on the PC side. And the mobile market is moving from an operator controlled (where Opera thrives by charging operators) to one where browsers are already included.
Opera needs to find a way to be relevant in the new and inevitable future.
Apple - included. Android - included. Windows phone - included.
That's not to say that there isn't a role for after market browsers like Firefox and Opera, but the opportunity has significantly diminished.
Given that mobile and operators has been the major source of revenue for Opera, the company might have some very challenging decisions to make.
That way developers have access to WebGL as an API for 3D, but Apple is not exposing the WebGL attack surface to the entire Internet. As the spec matures, GPU drivers are hardened, etc. they always have the option to open it up more.