Students ID#: 52115607 Students name: ABBADI Heba Date: January 13, 2017

The rise of Firefox in the web browser industry: The role of open source in setting
standards

The recent years have witnessed a continuous decline of the use of Microsoft Internet
Explorer (IE) share in the web browser market. This is mainly induced by the continuous
gains of Mozilla Firefox, an open source software product.

A web browser is an application program that provides a method to look at and

interact with all the information on the World Wide Web, in other word, it is a program
used to surf the Internet.

This paper addresses the evolution of web browsers, and explains the ways of which
an open source would affect the dynamics of competition in a market, through the
analysis of the competitive relationship between the main players in this ongoing
battle. It addresses two battles; Netscape versus Microsoft, and Microsoft versus
Mozilla. The analysis contributes to the understanding of standard battles in the
context of open source software.

In the First Battle, in order to overcome Netscapes massive installed user base,
Microsoft targeted new Internet users, which doubled in number each year. There are
three key factors contributed to Microsoft successfulness: bundling IE with the
operating systems, agreements with ISPs and OEMs, and the propagation of
proprietary extensions, which are highly associated with existent standards theories,
resulted in the decline of Netscape and the rise of IE, mainly through lock-in and
network externalities effects.

In the Second Battle, the rise of Firefox and the slow but steady decline of IE was due
to three factors. The first factor is the superior browser-related characteristics and
performance offered by Firefox, including the openness of the licensing program, its
high quality especially with regard to security and standards support, and the lack of
innovation by Microsoft. The second factor is the involvement of various stakeholders,
including Mozilla Foundation, volunteers, and commercial firms, which ensured the
continuity of the project and enhanced the quality of the browser and contributed to
marketing it. Finally, the compatibility of Firefox with multiple operating systems other
than Microsoft, such as Apple and Linux, which increased the installed base of Firefox,
which is similar to the strategy pursued by Microsoft during the First Browser Battle.

Being an open source web browser has assisted Firefox to achieve quality and the
involvement of key players in the software industry. This community-driven
coordination prevented any single firm from emerging as the decision-maker; this
allowed innovations and further development to arrive from various creative sources.

In an attempt to answer the research question, regarding how an open source would
affect the dynamics of competition in a market, this study argues that some
characteristics of Open Source Firefox, such as the semi-open development
approach and the involvement of commercial companies, partially explain the rise of
this web browser. Lock-in mechanisms, which historically have been reported to be
dominant factors in standards battles, seem to have little impact in the context of
open source software.