Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Browse this Space

This week Steve Jobs announced that Apple would make its Safari Web browser available for Windows based PCs. The gloves are coming off all over the Microsoft empire and potential wars loom.
This is a significant step forward for Safari. Jobs claims it would have twice the performance capability of Microsoft’s browser but importantly Apple has declared a desire to go after the half a billion downloads of Apple’s iTunes software to Windows users and shift the application focus squarely on the Internet.
Microsoft has currently 80 percent market share is a continuing threat to its competitors. Safari’s current market share is currently about 5 percent with Firefox, the open source browser, about 15 percent. Whatever happened to Netscape?
The broader appeal of the browser might have implications for Apple’s new iPhone, its interfaces and compatible applications. Browse this space.