In The Browser War Does The Tortoise Beat The Hare?

Longer release cycles may be good for operating systems, but not so much for browsers

Responding to critics of their rapid release schedule for the popular Firefox browser, Mozilla has announced a new version of Firefox called Firefox ESR. The new version will be updated only every 42 weeks. Gregg Keizer over on ComputerWorld has a write up on it.

The idea of having an enterprise version that is not updated as often is not necessarily new or novel.  It is pretty common in the both the enterprise OS space and in the open source space.  For instance Red Hat's Enterprise Linux is on a much longer release cycle.The reasons for these longer release cycles are fairly obvious. Enterprises just don't run out and update that often. Their update cycles tend to be measured in months and years, rather than weeks and days.

But make no mistake, a large part of this move is about security. Mozilla would stop security updates for an old version as soon as a new version was released. So while no one put a gun to the head of an enterprise to update to the latest and greatest release, if they didn't their version of the browser could quickly become a liability when the seemingly inevitable vulnerabilities were discovered. By offering the ESR version Mozilla is committing to maintaining security updates for a 54 week period. Just over a year. This is the kind of "security blanket" that enterprises need.

A browser though is not an OS, nor is it another type of application. More than perhaps any other app, the browser is the Internet. As such, they generally move and evolve at Internet speed. In fact Google's Chrome browser has made such great headway that it rivals Firefox or some might say even surpasses Firefox because of its rapid development cycles. On the other hand Microsoft's Internet Explorer with its traditional enterprise release cycle that almost matched Windows release cycles has suffered. Mozilla's move to 6 week rapid release cycles was generally considered to be a response to the challenge from Google's Chrome rapid evolution.

So now Mozilla is trying to cut the baby in half and please everyone.  If you like latest and greatest use the regular Firefox.If your enterprise demands more certainty and time, go for ESR. No matter your size or preference there is a Firefox for you.  I understand the philosophy. But there is another school of thought that says you can't please everyone and that by being a jack of all, you become a master of none.

Mozilla does not have unlimited resources. I think they should pick one release cycle, one browser product and make it the best.  If it were me I would pick the rapid release product to put my resources behind.  In the browser wars I think the hare beats the tortoise every time.

But let me throw another thought out there that I will follow up on in a later post.  Mozilla needs a horse in the mobile OS space. The future is a mobile future.  Safari has iOS. Chrome has Android and Microsoft has IE.  Mozilla should work with HP and become the sponsor of an open source WebOS with a tightly integrated Firefox browser at its heart. Get some dollars from HP and some special marketing privilege and go stake their claim.  To me that is much more exciting than being an enterprise browser maker.

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