Analysis – It’s the first of the month and
its market share day again. Of course, the big news isn’t such big news,
if you have been following us for awhile. Chrome has surpassed Firefox
in market share in November and is taking big steps toward IE, which it
may reach by Q3 2012. For Mozilla, it isn’t such a surprise either, but
the result of a series of mistakes as well as Google’s much greater
capability to advertise and push the adoption of its browser. Food for
thought.
Chrome has become the world’s Nr. 2 browser in November, even as the
browser’s growth weakened somewhat, most likely due to Microsoft’s
latest IE advertising campaign. According to StatCounter, Chrome now
holds 25.69% of the market and jumps ahead of Firefox, which dropped to
25.23%. IE is at 40.63%.
Chrome climbed by 2.76% or 0.69 points over October, which is
Chrome’s weakest month of growth on a percentage basis in 36 months.
However, Firefox dropped by 4.4% or 1.16 points, which was the most
significant drop in absolute numbers and on a percentage basis
StatCounter has on record. Over the past 6 months, Firefox lost 12.33%
of share, and over the past 12 months 20.37%. Both numbers are now
higher than those of IE, which lost 7.26% and 15.53%, respectively.
Mozilla’s November 2011 market share is the lowest we have on record.
Safari and Opera remain insignificant in the overall market with 5.92% and 1.82% share of browser share.
Trend
Given its product roadmap, we have reason to believe that Firefox may
be near its peak of market share loss. The upcoming versions of Firefox
are much stronger than the current release 8. Once Firefox will have
received Chrome migration tools as well as a new Home Tab app, and when
Mozilla releases Boot-to-Gecko, Firefox is much more capable of
competing again effectively. However, the turnaround is, in a best case
scenario, not going to happen until Q3 2012 and we expect Firefox to
drop at least to 23% of market share. Further delays of critical
features and aggressive marketing of Chrome and IE may force Firefox
down to 20%.
Chrome is, on the other hand, possibly close to its peak growth rate
and may have passed it already. There is only so much market share to
gain. We forecast Chrome market share growth to flatten over the entire
year 2012 with a peak share of about 34.5% to be reached in Q4. If
Google can maintain the current trend, Chrome will surpass IE in market
share in Q3 of next year.
IE had a good month – Microsoft was able to stop IE’s freefall thanks
to an advertising campaign. Interestingly, this campaign appears to
have affected Firefox more than Chrome. There is no reason to believe
that IE’s decline will slow, however. The big variable will be Windows 8
and IE10, and how many benefits the use of IE10 will offer when used in
Windows 8. The more Microsoft can customize IE10 and tailor it to the
strengths it requires to run HTML5 apps, the higher the chances will be
to go into a bloody battle with Google.
Keep in mind that the interests in this battle are very different.
Google wants overall Chrome adoption to support its search engine
advertising revenues. Mozilla promotes an open web and does not follow
any interests other than market share that will enable it to finance
itself down the road. Microsoft does not care much about IE6, IE7 and
IE8 anymore. It’s IE9 and its HTML5 support that counts, even if the
company continues to lose IE8 users to Chrome, because it has virtually
dropped all efforts to migrate IE8 users to IE9 (and Windows 7), which
is, in our opinion, a strategic mistake.
Mozilla’s mistakes
Mozilla has a very loyal user base and every time we publish an
article that isn’t entirely positive toward Mozilla, we get an earful of
users that tend to be more passionate in support of their browser than
any other browser. However, we criticize Mozilla, just like any other
company, every time we believe to have reason to. Mozilla’s problem was
that it quickly evolved from a hunter to become the hunted. Mozilla
needed to change much faster than it did and reflects the image of being
run over by a freight train. Mozilla can’t ignore the fact that it has
made some big mistakes that have made it easier for Google to pass it in
share.
Firefox 4. When announced in May of 2010, Firefox 4 was
barely competitive with its rivals. What killed Mozilla was a never
ending beta and release candidate phase and a development time of more
than one year, if we include the alpha versions of Firefox 3.7, which,
eventually, turned into Firefox 4. By the time Firefox 4 was released in
2011, it was perceived to be an already outdated browser that was
incapable of convincing Chrome users of switching back.
Reaction time. Despite its change to a 6-week rapid release
process, Mozilla is not adding features at the speed it would need to
gain traction again. The switch to a silent update has taken way too
long. The inclusion of the Home Tab is long overdue. SPDY is just making
it into Firefox now. Mozilla completely missed the need for Chrome
migration tools and is not implementing those features fast enough. A
current example is the Joystick API, which Mozilla proposed more than a
year ago, but somewhat dropped. Google picked it up in late August of
this year and has it working in its developer versions of Chrome
already. And we should not forget uncontrolled communication from
Mozilla staff and developers that raised questions about Mozilla
structure and bruised the image of the organization. Remeber how Mozilla
alienated its
business users? Despite the fact that Mozilla is still inventing and
shaping the browser world, it takes far longer to bring features to
fruition than it does for Chrome. Firefox, as a result, does not carry
the impression of an innovative browser anymore. Mozilla will need much
more focus and aggressively pursue and own the features it
invents. A notable exception, by the way, was the reduction for memory
usage. Google follows the trend, but has recently introduced an
incremental garbage collector, which Mozilla has put on its development
plan recently.
Differentiation. So, how is Firefox different from other
browsers and what benefit does that offer to you? On a feature basis, it
is difficult to make the case for Firefox outside the add-on space
(which Mozilla has somewhat jeopardized last year as well when it
introduced uncertainty how add-ons would be moved from Firefox to
Firefox release). While Firefox may, in fact, be the best HTML5 browser
in the market today as it bridges the advantages in HTML5 support in
Chrome and the hardware acceleration speed in IE9 – and offers great
memory management as a benefit – it is not seen as the ‘best’ browser
today by the mainstream user. Mozilla today believes makes Firefox
really different is the fact that it is independent and users do not
have to worry that they are sent into a trap of servicing a specific
corporate interest. That is an honorable proposition, but it appears
that this communication strategy does not work as many do not seem to
care at this point. Whether Mozilla likes Chrome or not, there has to be
the recognition that something about Chrome resonates with users. The
fact that Google has created an image of Chrome that is unique and has
turned it into the most innovative and most dynamic browser, as far as
user perception is concerned, goes a long way in today’s browser world.
Mozilla will need to differentiate Firefox again – much more
aggressively than it does today.
Platform. Compared to its rivals Microsoft and Google,
Mozilla does not have a platform that it could use to promote its
browser. Google has its search engine and a gigantic corporate structure
as well as the necessary funds to drive Chrome adoption. Microsoft can
be, if it wants to, even more powerful and it is clear that the company
won’t take any prisoners with Windows 8 – Microsoft will need every IE10
user it can get to turn its HTML5 app store into a success. Mozilla can
fight back with Boot-to-Gecko (B2G), which superficially looks like an
extension to the strategy that has begun with Firefox for Android.
Mozilla’s big advantage of an open approach is that it can – and has to –
bridge platforms to deliver user value. Google won’t bridge all the way
to Apple and Microsoft, Microsoft is unlikely to bridge to Android and
Apple surely won’t encourage its users to use Google or Microsoft
platform products. Corporate interests and revenue will limit any
platform bridges. Firefox’ reach will also be limited, but a mobile
operating system that drives Mozilla’s products will be far more
powerful than Firefox alone in 2012. B2G can deliver tremendous value to
users that own a variety of different products, for example a user who
loves his iPhone, but runs Windows and Google’s Chrome browser. Firefox
will be the only browser that can bridge the gaps between those
products. Also, we should not forget that the Firefox brand carries
trust and prestige – and has a much greater chance of success than any
newcomer.
Opportunity. Possible the most substantial failure was the
fact that Mozilla has not pursued its opportunities. The only
opportunity Mozilla has capitalized on in 2011 was Firefox for Android
and that still has very little impact. Both IE and Chrome have, since
early 2010, shown very clearly what Google and Microsoft wanted to do
with their browsers. Google, for example, focused on JavaScript
acceleration to eliminate a performance bottleneck in web applications.
Microsoft focused on hardware acceleration to drive a vision of HTML5
apps. Both also shaped the reasoning behind a reduced browser interface,
where Google took the lead and Microsoft added its GUI design
experience in a clean and IE9 interface that offers more web content
space in pixels than any other popular browser today. It all adds up to
increased usability and a path the leads to apps running in the browser.
What opportunity did Mozilla pursue? It appears that Mozilla has
something of everything, but not the whole in anything. The result is
the appearance of a browser that is a compromise in many ways. Mozilla
needs to be much firmer in its definition of its vision for Firefox and
much more aggressive in pursuing this goal to make the browser more
identifiable and make the idea what Firefox will be much more
transparent.
Bottom line
The fact that Chrome surpassed Firefox is not a surprise. The decline
of Firefox began two years ago, in December 2009, when Chrome started
showing strength and Google determination that it needed a browser to
support its search services. Firefox 3.6 was showing its age back then
and Mozilla was way too confident about its user base. the surprise to
us is still how long it has taken Mozilla to accept the fact that Chrome
is a threat and that there is the need for a strategy shift and
urgency. Even if Firefox’ decline is accelerating now, Mozilla has a
strategy in place that can solve Firefox’ dilemma. However, Mozilla
needs to be much faster and much more determined in its execution than
it was over the past two years.
Mozilla’s greatest concern should be the developing corporate
strategies for Google and Microsoft. Browsers have turned into money
printing machines and are not the casual software tool of the early
2000s anymore. For Google and Microsoft, there are billions of dollars
at stake and Mozilla is standing in the way as it still holds a quarter
of the market. The only interest for Google and Microsoft to keep
Mozilla alive at the moment may be an alibi not to be tangled up in an
antitrust lawsuit. However, if Mozilla becomes relevant again, its
rivals will look at it with a different set of eyes: Perhaps it is time
to stop being nice: Firefox needs to be a threat to Chrome and IE to be
successful.
The good news is, of course, that Mozilla now officially captures the
perception of the underdog again that may, strangely enough, provide
the browser with more leverage with users than it has today.
Wolfgang Gruener in Business Products on December 01
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