14 DAY TRIAL // 2008 will see a new leaf turned in the face-off between Firefox and Internet Explorer. While Microsoft did manage to kill Netscape and to keep Opera under 1% of the market, Firefox dislodged a consistent audience from the Redmond company's proprietary browser. According to data from Net Applications, in 2007 alone, Firefox jumped from 13.70% in January to 16.80% in December. Toward the end of the past year, Mozilla revealed that it accounted for a 125 million strong install base for Firefox. Around the same time, Microsoft applauded over 300 million users just for Internet Explorer 7.
In this context, 2008 has much to offer to all players on the browser market. Opera could harvest the first fruits of its monopoly complaints against Microsoft (for the IE and Windows bundle) presented to the European Union Antitrust Commission. Apple has the opportunity to grab an extra slice of market share with Safari 3 for Windows Vista and Windows XP. But in all fairness, 2008 will be about Internet Explorer and Firefox. Or, more specifically, about Firefox 3.0 and Internet Explorer 8.
Before he stepped down from the role of Mozilla Chief Executive Officer, Mitchell Baker had drawn the line on the past year. "We're exiting 2007 in great shape", he stated. "It's been a good year in general, and a lot has come together in the last couple of months. The Firefox betas are exciting, at both the platform and UI levels, as well as the quality, documentation support and associated areas. We're actually using automation to build them, rather than just wishing we could. The visual team is getting the touch for doing exciting things in the product pages in a way that reflects Mozilla (dare I say, robot, fun and Mozilla). Labs is active, mobile is growing. MailCo is moving forward. Mozilla projects like SeaMonkey, Camino, Bugzilla, Sunbird and Lightning are healthy and active. Mozilla continues to represent much more than software."
Mozilla is currently serving Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 and is rapidly approaching the RTM of the browser. And as Mozilla is working to provide the successor of Firefox 2.0, Microsoft is hard at work building Internet Explorer 8, the upcoming iteration of IE following IE7. Firefox 3.0 will have a consistent head start over IE8. Microsoft only plans to drop the first beta of IE8 by mid 2008 and, judging by Mozilla's development pace, Firefox 3.0 will have already been available to users by that time. In fact, IE8 is not planned for RTM until late 2008, early 2009. With a little inspiration from Mozilla's new CEO, John Lilly, Firefox 3.0 could very well make 2008 Mozilla's year.
"2008 is Mozilla's 10th anniversary year, and I'd like 2008 to be the year of Mozilla. I hope to see us celebrate what the web has become, what it can be, what Mozilla has done and Mozilla's future throughout the year. I don't have or know of specific plans yet, but that's what 2008 is for", Baker added.