Firefox Reaches Plateau, Mozilla Needs to Find the Next Step
Mozilla’s Firefox browser is doing just fine but it’s feeling a growing flame underneath it from Google’s Chrome browser, which continues to grow at a fast pace. So, what’s next for Mozilla?
According to Net Applications, Microsoft Internet Explorer finished March with 60.65 percent of the browser market, down from 61.58 percent in February. IE has been on a downward ride since June 2009, when it held 68.32 percent of the market.
Firefox claimed 24.52 percent of the market in March, up from 24.23 percent in February, according to Net Applications. StatCounter pegs its market share at 31.85 percent as of April 10, and Mozilla estimates that Firefox’s worldwide share is close to 30 percent.
Despite Chrome’s rise in popularity, Firefox has managed to continue growing its share of the browser market.
Chrome was third in March with 6.13 percent of the browser market, up from 5.61 percent in February. Google’s browser has been steadily increasing its share of the market for a very long time now. It held just 2.18 percent of the market in May 2009.
Apple’s Safari browser had 4.65 percent of the market in March, followed by Opera with 2.37 percent and Opera Mini with 0.78 percent.
While Firefox’s achievements are certainly admirable, it continues to be stuck between an immovable giant in Microsoft and a hot rival in Google. So, what’s next for Mozilla?
The company continues to tweak and improve Firefox’s performance and speed but there has to be more than this. Matt Asay at CNET notes that “At least two years ago, Mozilla started raising the suggestion that it could be the open platform for Web development. Today, this suggestion looks ever more credible as the company builds out functionality like Weave and Contacts.”
With Microsoft bearing down and Google gearing up with Chrome as its “browser-based window to the Web,” it appears that Mozilla doesn’t hold much water as an open-source browser foundation.
But according to Asay, Mozilla is interesting when you think of how it might be able to marry the social Web and the “browsing-alone Web.”
“Mozilla can more than pay the bills by enabling the sort of trust that could undergird the next century of commerce and community on the Web,” Asay wrote.
Sources:</strong
http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-200903-201004
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-20002242-16.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/02/mozilla_no_flash_plans/
