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Mobile Devices and the Browser Wars

Michael Calore of Wired delved more deeply into the Opera video that I mentioned yesterday. In particular, he took the logical step of contacting Opera PR to ask about David Rosen’s off-the-cuff assertion that they are planning an iPhone port. Opera communications honcho Michelle Valdivia Lien’s response is a PR classic:

This is one of those cases of an enthusiastic developer answering a question theoretically. There are no current release plans for Opera Mini or any version of Opera for iPhone.

Translation:

I’m constantly telling company management to keep the developers tied up and gagged in the basement. Letting them out to interact with other people is only asking for trouble.

Regardless of the true status of these rumored plans, Michael then cuts to heart of the matter:

Safari is a great browser and all, but many are itching to see other browsers like Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer (don’t scoff, there are plenty of reasons) running on their Apple gadgets.

[Michael, I’m scoffing. What are these reasons of which you speak?]

Are we headed to another round of the browser wars on the iPhone, or is it a broader war to be waged on multiple devices?

If so, who wins? On the iPhone in particular, Apple already has a head start. Who’s to follow next?

I discussed this informally with some Mozilla folks yesterday. Apparently they did consider porting Firefox to the iPhone but couldn’t see the point. Apple is clearly hoping that devices like the iPhone and Apple TV will expand their potential user base, the market for personal computers being inherently limited by their complexity. Seen in this light, the last thing you’d want is for grandma to be swapping out something as fundamental as her phone’s default browser. Naturally some technology fanatics won’t sleep until they get Emacs/W3 running on the iPhone, but then some people can’t wait to take a blowtorch to their brand new Porsche. This isn’t going to hit the mainstream. Ever.

At the same time, it’s an observable fact that the browser wars are going mobile. Competition between Microsoft, Opera, WebKit and Mozilla for inclusion on new devices is fierce. But the battle is for OEM deals, not for the hearts and minds of consumers. As with its Macintosh line, Apple is betting that its tightly integrated hardware/software combo will carry the day. WebKit is rocking and rolling, most recently as the browser of choice for Google’s Android platform. Microsoft is Microsoft. And Mozilla is finally taking the mobile space more seriously (with its engine already shipping on the Nokia N800). As on the desktop, the spoils will go to the vendor best able to make its browser a great platform for deploying applications, not just a vehicle for surfing the web.

UPDATE: Michael responds.