Firefox Key To Open Mobile Web

April 29, 2008

Mozilla president Mitchell Baker on Thursday called on developers to achieve the same features, functionality, and passion for handheld devices as they have done to the PC, using the Firefox browser as the model.

“We should be able to access it, Zapping, mash, save, save. All these things should be the same if I’m on a laptop computer or phone, at home or in a train,” Baker said during his speech on the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

After 30 years of desktops and 15 years of Web user interfaces, Baker said that the rules on what constitutes a “browser” and “Mobile Web” should be redefined. “The mobile web should not play any role and for most developers should not play any role,” he said.

To that end, Mozilla plans include the addition of mobile devices for the first set class/tier-1 platform for Mozilla 2, the company’s all-in-one “open source suite of Internet applications that comes with a Web browser, e-mail, news and client. The change will make mobile devices at the heart of the Mozilla platform.

Mozilla also is developing a mobile version of Firefox, Firefox extensions can run on mobile devices. The developers can create rich applications for mobile Firefox through the extensive User Interface Language or XUL, a markup language based on XML.

“Throughout 2008, will see new ideas and experiments,” he said.

In one example, Baker pointed out that finding a restaurant can be accelerated if the device has cached data can be accessed through a Web browser instead of having to synchronize with the Internet. “We can see that it is possible,” he said. “Firefox is the fastest, most efficient way to get there.”

Despite the dominance of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox has made great strides. EI accounts for approximately 77% of the market, and Firefox has a 16%, according to figures from the Internet firm Net Applications.

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