Browser Wars: What Are They Good For?

by: Markham Lee September 04, 2008 | about stocks: AAPL / MSFT    
Markham Lee

Markham Lee

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While this is a topic I would normally shy away from I've decided to make an exception in this case, however instead of writing any commentary I will just ask a very simple question: Aside from bragging rights what does one "win" from winning a browser war? What is the revenue/profit source that one is attempting to get a lock on by having dominant market share for internet browsers. Better yet, what is (or was) the net impact on earnings from winning the last round of browser wars?

I'm starting to think that the actions of certain tech companies are ego driven attempts to grab headlines, position themselves as the dominant tech company, etc, etc, then they're about making money.

I also wonder if the average internet user even cares anymore aside from instances where they run into a browser compatibility issue, situations that are rather rare these days.

Whoops, a little bit of commentary, oh well.

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This article has 14 comments:

  •  
    Sep 04 09:12 AM
    Chrome is not about browser wars but about OS wars.

    There is high level of incompatibility between browsers and designers waste incredible amounts of time to get their pages working on all the major browsers. That's why you don't see this issue.

    How do companies make money on browsers? Beats me! But that is like asking how MacDonald's makes money on the rest rooms... You gotta have 'em...
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  •  
    Sep 04 10:07 AM
    "There is high level of incompatibility between browsers and designers waste incredible amounts of time to get their pages working on all the major browsers."

    And adding one more browser to the mix will just make the problem worse. I've been a fan of Firefox/Mozilla for quite a while, because I thought it was good to have a well funded open source browser project competing with I.E., but it's hard to see how the benefit of another open-source alternative will outweigh the cost of having to deal with another slightly incompatible browser.
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  •  
    Sep 04 10:07 AM
    "There is high level of incompatibility between browsers and designers waste incredible amounts of time to get their pages working on all the major browsers."

    And adding one more browser to the mix will just make the problem worse. I've been a fan of Firefox/Mozilla for quite a while, because I thought it was good to have a well funded open source browser project competing with I.E., but it's hard to see how the benefit of another open-source alternative will outweigh the cost of having to deal with another slightly incompatible browser.
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  •  
    Sep 04 10:10 AM
    Oops. Didn't mean to post the last message twice. The Seeking Alpha UI makes it far too easy to do that (I've seen this issue many times).
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  •  
    Sep 04 10:17 AM
    captainccs is right, but there are other stakes.

    Google has implemented a browser "substructure&quo... called Gears, that has been available for use for many months now. Gears speeds up routine web database operations by caching recently-accessed information, which reduces internet traffic and increases perceived speed. Chrome integrates Gears.

    Additionally, Google says they have reduced the memory footprint and improved the stability of the browser; it wouldn't surprise me at all if they have provided software hooks to allow developers to create a wider variety of well-behaved add-ons than are currently doable. MySpace has already created a Gears-aware environment that (it is said) is far faster that their previous non-Gears application. And the end-user doesn't have to change anything but their browser...apps that use Gears just run faster and with less network overhead when accessed with a browser that supports it.

    My initial reaction is that the company with the most at risk in the current environment is Adobe. Apple has gone on record as not supporting Flash in their handhelds. Google's handheld is expected a few months from now. There's no doubt in my mind that Android (the Google cell phone product) will incorporate Chrome. Suddenly, Adobe's role in the hottest part of the IT market is unclear. While visually flashy (pun intended) Flash is piggy with memory and CPU cycles.

    I've used Chrome and aren't won over from Firefox and Safari (yet). But the opening shots have just been fired, and the game is far from over.
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  •  
    Sep 04 11:28 AM
    If Google wipes out Firefox, they will save the $50-$100 million a year that they pay Mozilla in exchange for the google search box.
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  •  
    Sep 04 01:34 PM
    Google offers many web-based applications and will likely continue to offer more web-based applications in the future. These applications often use a lot of a javascript. Chrome offers an exponential improvement in the handling of javascript. So, Google has a lot to gain. They make their own web-apps more viable. This is great for the long-term plan of Google to take a lot of workstation-based applications and turn them into web-based applications. There is also the added benefit of wrestling power away from Microsoft.
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  •  
    Sep 04 03:07 PM
    You write for Seeking Alpha and you don't know why companies do things. Ever thought of another line of work? The browser wars are about MONEY.
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  •  
    Sep 04 04:29 PM
    For those that say the browser wars are about money, I ask again: did the winner of the last browser war benefit financially from it? Back in the '90s the expectation was that the winner of the browser war would effectively "own" the Window to the Internet, and as a result would easily be able to monetize that advantage.

    This turned out to be a pipe dream as the winner of the browser war didn't benefit financially in the end, and now finds itself investing more in the browser to keep up with an upstart.

    The newest entrant in the war has other things in mind and could "conceivably"... benefit, but what is more likely to happen is that multiple companies will spend tens of millions of dollars to develop products that will converge (in a sense) in terms of capabilities and in the end, see little benefit.

    14 years after Netscape and no software company has really been able to show the financial advantage of having the dominant browser.

    My techie side is excited in terms of seeing new technology, but my more practical investor side is rather unimpressed.


    -M
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  •  
    Sep 04 04:37 PM
    Are you certain that Microsoft was unable to monetize their dominance of the browser market? Most companies use IE6/IE7 for their intranet applications. Most of these applications use IIS running on a Windows server. And in Microsoft's case, if you really want a "good" version of IE, then you are running a Windows operating system.
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  •  
    Sep 04 07:38 PM
    Ever been in an airport, a train station, or on a toll road? It's the real estate man! How can anyone go anywhere on the Internets without going through a browser? I mean, perhaps a Javatard could, but I can't. Having people go through a connecting point makes them susceptible to all forms of marketing.

    Plus, knowing Google, they are considering how a browser could be the connecting point to all kinds of applications that would currently reside on your hard drive. Currently these are most commonly either loaded on your computer when you get it, or come in a box. Not in the future, if Google has its way with the cloud concept.

    If I were Microsoft, I'd be thinking about this. I'm guessing they're about as far along with this as GM is with well-designed fuel-efficient cars. Which is to say, oh, about 2015 they'll be there.
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  •  
    Sep 04 09:44 PM
    Google's entry into the browser market is NOT just about winning any war. It's about having a marker in the game so that the internet remains open, and adheres to web standards that are not just MS-blessed ones. Chrome and Google's Android are built upon WebKit. WebKit is the most standard web-compliant browser engine out there. It meets 100% of the Acid3 tests. Many other small browsers and other internet apps use WebKit or plan to. Of course WebKit was developed by Apple's Safari team on top of KHTML, and was given back to the open-source community. Nokia uses it for s60. Obviously Chrome and Android use it. Adobe Air will use it. As well as others.

    WebKit is fast, it's light in size, great for mobile apps, and meets web standards. The bottom line is that WebKit does NOT have to win any war, in order to achieve its goals, which is to prevent MS from gaining a monopoly and thus impose proprietary solutions upon the internet.

    The reason why Safari is on Windows is much the same as why Google developed Chrome. No one expects Safari to win the browser wars, its existence is to keep MS honest.
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  •  
    Sep 05 09:48 AM
    Once again, in three SA artlcles I have read in the past 12 hours, KenC is dead on the money.

    How could someone write a blog about tech and be so utterly clueless as this author?

    Geez, go to wikipedia or somewhere and read about embrace and extend. Maybe there is a good explanation there, I don't know.

    Basically here's how it goes...

    1. A real, published standard is invented. Such as Java, for example.
    2. MS fights it as long as possible, tells everyone it won't work, etc...
    3. Once it's too late to merely spread FUD (fear, uncertainly and doubt) about it, they decide to 'embrace and extend' it. This is a euphemism the real meaning of which probably shouldn't be put in a comment or published here because kids might be reading...
    4. #3 is played out by MS taking the real standard and publishing a very different version, which is not published or supported beyond the windows desktop. More thought it put into making it not work anywhere but windows (in the old days they would often play off of the little endian/big endian difference when attacking, say Mac OS).
    5. MS pushes this perverted version of the standard, bundles it on WINdoze for all the people that just want a basic, cheap, generic computer, and they end up taking massive marketshare. This last step isn't working very well in Vista though!

    This has happened over and over and over and over. The fact that the author has apparently no clue about this or doesn't want to talk about it speaks volumes.
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  •  
    Sep 05 09:56 AM
    Oh, and Chrome is not really a new browser. Add it to Safari's marketshare because anything compatible with safari should work on chrome (and more likely work on firefox than I.E. Firefox could stand to lose the most though because chrome and safari could easily overtake firefox as the most used, standards based browser and alternative to I.E. (completely non-standards based unless you consider I.E. a 'standard' not because it's published and cross platform but merly because of it's marketshare.

    Microsoft is further about getting all sorts of content management systems in place, etc.. which REQUIRE all the users to have I.E. which pushes windows and further props up the monopoly.

    It's not at all about ego for Apple and Google, it's about survival. As for firefox, I am not sure what they get out of it.
    Reply | Link to Comment
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