Mobile Browsers Makes Waves & Bitstream Makes Comeback; Are Browsers The New Application Framework?
The advance of the mobile Web and the growing popularity of Internet destinations on mobile phones give importance to the mobile browser and anticipate another impending battle for the control of the user experience.Are browsers the new application framework, as this post from GigaOm suggests? It argues - in my view, quite convincingly - that “browsers, plus the right downloads such as Flash or Silverlight, will drive the consumer experience more than the OS.” The post also quotes the silicon-vendor ARM, a company that has a keen interest in the outcome and has staked some serious turf through its recent deal with Mozilla. (Mozilla is developing a mobile browser that has also been embraced by Nokia, the handset manufacturer’s executives have told me. You can check out the cool Mozilla concept prototype, code name Fennec, which is currently being designed for a touch screen, here.)
Or is the hype around mobile browsers distracting us from widgets as the approach to bank on? Certainly the move toward web-based applications and away from native applications makes customized widgets a key component in our personal mobility experiences. (Peggy S. tells me we can look forward to a lively debate on this topic, beginning with a thought-provoking column from her favourite widget guru, Dave Evans, SurfKitchen CTO, so check back regularly.)
Logically, the browser is not likely to control our mobile Web experience (we really may not choose to replicate our Internet experience on mobile devices, which speaks in favor of a new made-for-mobile approach). However, the browser is in a pivotal position to drive our mobile Web experience, and this alone is reason to examine recent commercial solutions and their potential impacts on how we interface and interact with mobile content.
The last weeks have seen some milestones developments that will no doubt impact how we experience the Internet on our phones. There’s the trickle of news about what we can expect from Mozilla; the news that Skyfire has rolled out the beta release of its mobile browser (an excellent review is here); and a mobile browser speed test of Skyfire, Opera 9.5.1 and Safari from Laptop Magazine, to name just a few examples of the attention mobile browsers are getting lately.
And while we’re at it, who said the winner’s circle won’t include a few surprises?
I’m thinking here of Bitstream, a U.S.-based company that introduced one of the first real mobile browsers some six (!) years ago. Because a mobile browser that targeted smartphones was years ahead of the market, Bitstream shifted its strategy to adapt the technology for use on both high-end and mass-market devices.
The result of that effort is ThunderHawk version 3.0, a browser that marks a comeback for Bitstream and a turning point in how we can access, navigate and enjoy Internet content on our mobile phones.
I caught up with Anna Chagnon, Bitstream’s CEO, for a demo of the browser and an in-depth briefing on where it all goes from here.
What does Bitstream have in mind?
In terms of distribution, Bitstream has devoted 2008 corporate funds and personnel to promote its browser technology to mobile operators and OEMs. Anna tells me the company is pursuing a multi-pronged business model, which is smart.
Bitstream has a client/server version of ThunderHawk that can be scaled to all kinds of phones and a server-based “client-less” solution that eases deployment to all of an operators’ handsets, and, Anna tells me, work is under way on a client-only browser for high-end phones.
While the company is aggressively targeting operators and device manufacturers with ThunderHawk, it is also targeting content companies and enterprise IT departments that want digital content sent to mobile devices. And Bitstream is also considering the option of licensing ThunderHawk as a white-label product. As Anna puts it: “It’s possible that if people approached us from other browsing companies we’d be open to that, and clearly what we want to do is get the technology out in the marketplace.”
What does Bitstream offer?
At its heart, Bitstream is a digital font company, and it drew from this core competency when creating the ThunderHawk browser. In fact, ThunderHawk effectively replaces the fonts used in the original content contained in a Web page with a proprietary font technology that has several positives. It is more readable and scalable on mobile devices, minimizes the scrolling needed to scan content, and eliminates a lot of the heavy lifting in a network that is required to send data streams associated with fonts in the first place. In fact, it substantially cuts the time needed to load pages - period.
So what is Anna’s assessment of the browser market today? “Some of what the iPhone has taught us is that people will browse on phones that have the right experience level, but until the market takes off there will always be questions about how many and how far the technology goes,” she acknowledged to me.
But it is her view that “until you have a full desktop browsing experience, [the market is] not going to go very far, which is why our experience is really the image of the desktop and tools to help users navigate through that on a smaller screen.”
To this end, the ThunderHawk browser offers patented zoom-in and out modes and a split-view screen feature that gives users the ability to simultaneously view a miniaturized display of a full HTML Web page as it would appear on a desktop, as well as a section of highlighted text, in a larger typeface that the user scrolls through for reading. (Opera Mini, to name just one comparison, gives a layout-perspective and the zoom in-zoom out capability, but not the split-screen feature.)
ThunderHawk users can also employ the browser and assorted soft-keys to open links and conduct Web searches and make one-click calls directly to phone numbers on Web pages.
But grabbing a piece of the action in the mobile browser market will hardly be an easy task for Bitstream. Opera, ACCESS and open source solutions, such as Webkit, are likewise jockeying for position in the marketplace. But the pay-off will be worth it. ABI Research reckons this segment of the mobile browser market (which it calls open-Internet browser, or OIB) will skyrocket, with nearly 700 million browsers delivered in 2013, up from 76 million in 2007.
The bottom line:
As in any mobile technology marketplace, vendors that have differentiating solutions as well as a breadth of products can find advantage. Frank Dickson, co-founder and chief research officer at MultiMedia Intelligence, a market research firm, is impressed by the ThunderHawk browser, as I am. But Bitstream might have a better chance at the big leagues if it focuses on helping mobile content companies and application developers exploit its enabling technologies (which Frank describes as ahead-of-their-time and core to Bitstream’s “strategic competitiveness”).
Bitstream should also borrow a page from the way Adobe Systems licenses its products in the online world, and license its technologies for use in creating mobile content too. “That would be the holy grail for them,” Frank suggested. And I couldn’t agree more.
Tags: Bitstream, GigaOm, Nokia, SurfKitchen
