Coming out with a reliable piece of software is one thing, but making it available in the market is a completely different story. This is the dilemma Mozilla is facing with their mobile FireFox internet browser now known as Fennec. The big players in the mobile OS scene such as Microsoft, Apple, and RIM all have their own internet browsers. This puts Mozilla in a tight position considering that the Fennec will rival whatever browser is included in the mentioned platforms. From a business stand point, it would be wise for Microsoft et al. not to allow Fennec to run on their products since it’s a direct competitor. However, I do feel that consumers are looking for alternative solutions that offer better performance aside from what is already made available to them. Thus, I am hoping that companies will take this known fact into consideration and eventually allow Fennec on their systems to give users the freedom to choose and decide which software is the best one to use on their respective phones. Apple, of course, is an exception.
As far as Google and the Android OS are concerned, it definitely won’t be available on that platform unless Google changes its policy of limiting 3rd party application to be written in Java only. Android currently doesn’t support software that directly runs on the OS which is what Fennec does. So, until Google decides to change its mind regarding this restriction, Fennec won’t see the light of day on the Android OS.
Tough, but this is the reality we’ll have to contend with at the moment.
