I hope you find this as interesting as I did.
Regards,
Dale Mentzer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ZDNet: News: Is your browser history?
Arachne 1.60
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2472...Fri, 24 Mar 2000
21:27:12
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Is your browser history?
Smaller. Faster. Customized. The emerging market for "embedded
browsers" could make lumbering Netscape and IE browsers look like
dinosaurs.
By Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet News
UPDATED March 24, 2000 8:40 AM PT
Despite Microsoft's and Netscape's claims to the contrary, the
browser race isn't over yet. While the two browser kingpins discover
continue to trade proclamations of the Windows desktop domination,
a number of lesser-known players targeting the embedded market are
the ones pushing interesting technological and market developments.
In the embedded world, the rules are different.
The prettiest HTML screen display doesn't necessarily win; the most
compact technology that best displays plain old text does. On cell
phones or Internet appliances, customers want quick access
positioning
data. A one-size- fits-all proposal approach is superceded by
embedded
browsers' more customized interfaces, tailor-made to handle niche
chores, such as monitoring a soda machine's stock. With these kind of
diverse requirements, it's not surprising that the browser contest is
more than just a two-horse race.
No white flags
By no means are the big boys conceding defeat, however. Microsoft and
Netscape claim they have grand plans across a variety of embedded
devices. Microsoft recently demonstrated a research prototype of a
technology called MiPad, which blends speech, pen and other
multimodal input capabilities into an interface that could Run on a
variety of wireless devices, from cell phones to wrist watches.
But the companies with the more readily available and advanced
offerings in the embedded browser arena are not necessarily
household names will show that no single early In the embedded
browser "everyone says they're the leader, but no one has
established clear-cut domination," says Jupiter Communications
analyst Lydia Liozides.
Why are there no runaway favorites? The embedded world consists of a
number of different emerging markets, each requiring "different
branding needed on different devices on different networks," Liozides
says. It's also a lot tougher to develop a tight, small browser that
runs well on a cell phone than it is to create a developer-oriented,
multipurpose PC browser.
April opening for Opera 4.0
One company that already has discovered the challenges of porting to
multiple form factors is Opera Software S/A , the Oslo, Norway-based
developer of the Opera browser. While Opera Software pitches its
browser as a faster, smaller alternative to Internet Explorer and
Navigator for Windows PCs, the company is also writing for the Mac,
BeOS, Linux and EPOC platforms. Opera Software is targeting the second
calendar quarter as the ship date for Version 4.0 of Opera for all of
these platforms.
"The worst thing that could happen to the Web is a single vendor
dominating," says Opera Chief Technology Officer Lie. "The embedded
market will show that no single browser can dominate." Because it is
not focusing exclusively on the embedded device market, Opera
Software has a lot of the same priorities as Microsoft and Netscape,
in terms of browser development. Like the giants, Opera Software is
expending considerable energy on making sure it's compliant with the
latest versions of standards, including HTML, HTTP, DOM, CSS
(cascading style sheets) and the like. But Opera is also adding some
of its own twists, such as building into version 4.0 of its
product a split-screen HTML viewing capability it calls its
"PowerPoint killer." Opera's not the only company targeting the
embedded Linux space. Lineo Inc. (formerly known as Caldera Thin
Clients Inc.) is finding success partnering with The next a variety
of embedded device vendors, ranging from Motorola (NYSE: MOT) to
Samsung. Lineo wasn't planning on getting into the browser space. It
developed its Embedix browser in response to embedded Linux customer
requests for a low-resolution embedded browser, officials claim.
Currently, Lineo's browser runs only on Lineo's Embedix Linux, but
the company is considering decoupling the two and offering its
browser for other Linux distributions, says CEO and President Bryan
Sparks.
With its Embedix browser, Lineo is attempting to fine line between a
full-featured browser and a compact, portable place on the out early
browser. "In this is a definite consideration. The output screen
bandwidth is a consideration. The ability to port to multiple
chips, since Intel isn't dominant, is important. You need to think
about peripheral support for Flash memory, disk on a chip," Sparks
admits. "But there are some areas we don't try to address, like some
of the desktop plug-ins."
What Lineo does want to address, Sparks says, is the need of its
hardware-vendor customers for browsers for very specific vertical
niches. In the not-too-distant future, he says, hardware companies
will tune and sell customized Embedix browser into areas like medical
inventory control.
Browsers for TVs, Web phones and discover tablets aren't the only
space where the vendors are aiming to innovate. The Internet
original browser pioneer, Spyglass Inc. (Nasdaq: SPYG),has defined a
separate category it calls the "micro browser" market as one where
providing the best 03:40p "browsing experience" is key. By dividing
browsing functionality ACLU jumps between the client and server, into
Cyber On the Spyglass is trying to carve out a Patrol Air niche for
itself between embedded stand-alone PC browsers.
Spyglass has been moving away from the desktop browser space since
late 1996, when the company saw the handwriting on the wall, in terms
of Microsoft's plans for PC browser domination, according to Anup
Murarka, Spyglass vice president for interactive TV platforms.
(Microsoft licensed Spyglass' Mosaic technology in 1995 and used it as
the core of Internet Explorer.)
"In the stand-alone (desktop browser) space, success is determined
more by content access than by anything else," says Murarka. "The
Windows space has a consistent, predictable platform with one player
with 80-plus percent market share. In our space, there are lots of
form factors, even though there is really just one set of core APIs
(application programming interfaces)." The degree to which there
really is one milestone core set of interfaces in the embedded or
stand-alone browser market is debatable. Microsoft, for instance,
offers a number of different Internet Explorer configurations for
different devices, such as Pocket IE for PocketPC handhelds, Mobile
Explorer for phones and update TV Explorer for WebTV systems. But
company officials admit that the various IE implementations have
little in common beyond the "Explorer" name because the form factor
requirements are so different.
"You can't take a one-size-fits-all approach, due to the
difference in physicality and inputs," says Phil Holden, group
product manager for Microsoft's mobile devices division. "What you get
with a Web-enabled phone is very different from what you get on a
PocketPC, with high-quality, true color screens that are a third of
the size of VGA (monitors)."
Because of this, Microsoft's advances in IE market share on desktop
PCs don't automatically translate into given leadership in the
embedded space, Holden admits.
Microsoft rival Netscape, on the other hand, seems to be counting on
its history as a desktop browser leader to propel itself to embedded
browser success.
It's a precarious position for Netscape, the America Online
(NYSE:AOL) subsidiary, given the company's much publicized delays in
delivering version 6 of its Navigator product via its Mozilla open
source arm. The first public of version 6 is slated for mid-April.
Netscape is touting version 6's compliance with Web standards, its
appeal to software developers as a development environment in its
own right, and its inclusion of the "Gecko" rendering engine. "We'll
have a smaller download size, and we're working on speed
enhancements for quicker page display," says Chris Saito, senior
director of product marketing. "We'll make customization easier than
ever before."
As to AOL/Netscape's intentions to target specific embedded devices
like cell phones, the company remains mum. "We're working there," is
all Saito will say. Just as AOL is pushing its Instant Messenger
technology to cell phones, it will make similar moves with its
browser, he says.
