More Thoughts on Explorer Destroyer

I feel that I should explain a little more why I decided to join the Just recently Google started a program, to web-based applications, like Google's GMail, Yahoo's Flickr or Upstartle's Writely. One big thing that you notice when you try to think of desktop applications these days is that it is very difficult to name one that everyone knows that is not produced by Microsoft. The main reason for this is that Microsoft has had a veritable stranglehold on the desktop operating system market with it's various versions of Windows for over 10 years. This dominance in the OS market has given them leverage in the desktop application market, making it very difficult for other players, even if they have technically better software, to gain footing.

It's true that anyone can develop applications for Microsoft Windows, and you can even do it without using Microsoft's development tools (although that tends to be more trouble than it's worth). The problem is, when you program for Windows, you program almost exclusively for Windows. Since Microsoft has had such a dominating position in the operating system market, it has not had to follow the same set of standards that Unix-based operating systems (including Macintosh OSX) have followed. This gives Microsoft's other divisions, such as desktop applications, a nice head start in developing the newest (and only) applications that take advantage of new operating system features.

This is why I joined the Explorer Destroyer project. I don't want to see what happened in the OS/desktop app arena to also happen in the internet app world. I'm afraid that if Microsoft can continue ignoring standards set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (an international group led by the inventor of the world wide web), they will be able convince web developers to spend enough extra time and effort coding specifically for Internet Explorer that Microsoft will again be able to leverage its dominance in one market, in this case the web browser market, to the internet-based application market, leading to the same outcome as the desktop realm.

Now, of course, Google's involvement with helping to promote Firefox puts them in a position to do a similar thing. If the people over at the Mozilla project decide to return the favor to Google and try to influence how developers create web apps in a way that aids Google, then we could have the same problem. But there are two main differences here. The first is that the Mozilla project is backed by the Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit organization who states that its mission is to "...preserve choice and innovation on the Internet...", whereas Microsoft is a profit-driven company that has been accused of numerous anti-trust violations, almost all of which concern leveraging of Windows to another market, such as web browsers (vs. Netscape) or media players (vs. RealNetworks and the EU). The second difference is that currently Firefox is only a small player in the market, and does not currently have enough influence on developers to deviate from standards. In fact, it seems that web developers who test with Firefox tend to write much more standards-compliant code than developers who work mainly with IE.

Finally, just so I'm on the up and up, I feel I have to disclose that I personally stand to profit by people downloading Firefox from this site. That is why, in case people decide they don't want me to get any money, there is a link below the button that will take them directly to the download page. Of course, if you're feeling generous, please feel free to use my site to download and install Firefox on all your friends' and families' computers.

Posted November 15, 2005 - Two Comments