As I stumbled over a note from Mozilla’s developer staff today, I
wondered how much impact feature delays in a rapid release process
really have and whether delays in a 6-week release cycle matter or not?
Firefox could use some good news, but there is not much that could cause
some optimism in the near future. Nearly every major feature the
browser could use today is delayed and the browser that Mozilla would
need today won’t be available until the end of April.
There
are not many words that can effectively sugarcoat Mozilla’s position in
the browser market today. Chrome surpassed Firefox last month and has
comfortably climbed above Firefox in the first few days of this month
and now averages 26.75% share, which is more than 1 point above Firefox
(25.46%). Chrome’s pace is rather stunning and raises questions whether
there is a competitor that can stop Google from capturing a dominating
market share in the browsers.
We have been somewhat optimistic that Mozilla could strike back with
Firefox 10, but new delays of features are now reason for concern that
Mozilla will not have an opportunity next year to gain some ground under
its feet to establish a foundation for growth again. The silent update
feature, which is one of the main reasons for Chrome’s success, will not
be completed until Firefox version 12 as Mozilla said that the pushback
from 11 to 12 was necessary “to mitigate risk of landing two large
architectural changes to update in a single release.” The roadmap also
indicates that the SPDY implementation for Firefox 11 is at risk and may
not happen in that release. Chrome migration features and the Home Tab,
both targeted at 11, are marked as “at risk” as well and could slip to
version 12.
The feature additions for Firefox 10 mainly address the mobile
version and the main upgrade for version 11 is a new tab page, web apps
integration as well as a media controls refresh. It is obvious that new
features require time to be developed and need to be matured for a final
version, but we also notice that the Home Tab app has been in
development for more than half a year. Given Firefox’ current market
position, Mozilla may not be able to afford such delays. Especially
critical requirements such as Mozilla’s Chrome migration tools, which
would allow Chrome users to easily switch back to Firefox with data
import tools, should be exposed to much higher priority and should be
developed on a significantly faster pace. There is really no way around
the problem that, even in a 6-week release cycle, Firefox is falling
back in the browser race again. As it stands, it is difficult for users
to understand why there is a 6-week cycle anyway as most new features
unveiled this year could have been delivered via minor product updates.
Firefox needs to be at its strongest especially when Windows 8 debuts
and to stand a chance to compete with Chrome. As we are ending 2011,
there is not much that we can see that will change Firefox substantially
until April 24, when Firefox 12 is scheduled for release – and that
assumes that there will not be any further delays.
The impact of these delays will strongly depend on Mozilla’s
competition as well as Mozilla’s capability to shift some focus to its
OS Boot-2-Gecko. However, there is very little room for error at this
time as Firefox is already on a decline and the more the browser falls,
the more difficult it will be to regain popularity against Google and
Microsoft, both of which are now building browser that aim to bind their
users much closer to a web browser than ever before: Both Chrome and
IE10 will be enabler for Google’s and Microsoft platform experience and
tailored to their specific requirements.
So, what is the outlook right now for Firefox in 2012? Mozilla is
clearly struggling with too many open ends. It has not provided a clear
answer for IT managers and their corporate users what Firefox will be
and how it will evolve and there is just not enough change for the
mainstream user to spark interest for Firefox again. If there is a lack
of focus and a development cycle that does not keep up with the promise
of a 6-week release cycle, 2012 could become an extremely tough year for
Mozilla.
The only way for Mozilla to compete with Google and Microsoft at this
time is a much stronger focus on a diligent delivery of its roadmap.
Daniel Bailey in Business on December 08
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