From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission.
Market share gains by the Firefox Web browser continued into early 2008, with Firefox now commanding 27% percent of all website visits. In total installed base, it still trails far behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but the open-source browser has already established itself as the mind share leader. That’s a remarkable feat in less than four years.
Firefox’s success is a tribute to the power of community development and the stickiness of open-source applications. It’s an example of how giving up control can enhance market leadership. Today, I would argue, Firefox is the dominant browser on the Internet.
How can that be when Firefox has only about a third of IE’s market share? Here’s a case where share is deceptive. For one thing, Firefox has momentum, having grown from less than 1% in 2004 to its present base of an estimated 140 million users. Secondly, Firefox has the allegiance of the most influential Internet users: enthusiasts, developers and people who contribute actively to social media sites. If there’s anything the history of the software industry has shown us, it’s that platforms that generate developer enthusiasm invariably edge out their competitors.
One can even argue that Firefox is already the top browser among these thought leaders. For example, look at the results of this poll from LifeHacker, a site devoted to computer and personal productivity advice. It’s unscientific, but still interesting. Asked why they use Internet Explorer, only about 15%, said it was because they actually preferred the software. Half of the respondents don’t even use IE at all. So while Firefox may have relatively low market share among all computer owners, it has achieved parity among the audience of serious enthusiasts.
This is the beauty of an open architecture comes into play. Firefox was designed and licensed from the beginning to accommodate user-develop extensions. More than 2,000 of them listed on the Firefox add-ons site, ranging in weekly download activity from hundreds of thousands to less than a dozen. Some of the extensions aren’t very good, but that doesn’t really matter. Users make their own choices and sites like LifeHacker take care of publicizing the best work.
Microsoft also permits developers to write extensions to Internet Explorer, but its approaches is quite different. In the early days, the IE software development kit was tightly controlled and add-ons had to pass Microsoft scrutiny in order to even be listed in the official directory. Microsoft had made an earnest effort to loosen up this process, but the company is culturally resistant to this unfettered development. In contrast to Firefox’s 2,000 extensions Microsoft’s official directory of an IE add-ons lists less than 100 entries. Perhaps that’s because, as the company states on his homepage, “The add-ons available here have been carefully screened by Microsoft and rated by users to help you select the ones that suit your needs and preferences.” Perhaps users don’t want their choices screened.
Listen to this short podcast from last summer’s O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference. In it, developers contrast the chaotic mess of the Firefox developer forums with the muted restraint of the IE third-party community. As StumbleUpon’s Garrett Camp notes, new Firefox extensions and updates spark endless analysis and debate while IE developers rarely talk at all. Intensity makes markets dynamic and innovative, and that’s what Firefox has.
This market share war is meaningless from a revenue standpoint because browsers are free. But Firefox’ continuing success is a powerful case for the superiority of the open-source model. Conceding power may paradoxically be the best way to gain power.