Mozilla Blames Microsoft, Says They Block Other Browsers

Forgets about the iPad.
Here is some drama for a Thursday night. In the tablet market where Apple pretty much dominates it with a healthy 90% market share mark (in terms of shipments), Mozilla decided to complain about no other than Microsoft, which, according to them, will not allow other browsers than IE to run in the Windows Classic mode on an ARM based, Windows RT OS.

However, what they fail to remember is the fact that Apple is the one who has monopoly now, yet, they don’t allow you to change the default web browser (aka) set it to anything but Safari.
Now, the software giant will obviously allow consumers to run the Firefox Metro, Chrome Metro or any other browser on the ARM tablet and this limitation is for the Windows Classic UI only, which, according to Microsoft’s attorney, David Heiner, is justified as “ARM processors, which power virtually all iOS, Android, and Windows Phone smartphones and tablets today, are different from the x86 chips that power PCs. The chips have new requirements for security and power management, and Microsoft is the only one who can meet those needs”.
Also, he pointed out that Windows RT is not Windows anymore and hey, it has exactly 0% of the market share. Still, Mozilla is said to be taking further action if issue is not addressed in the future.
Microsoft has also stated that you can’t install any traditional applications on Windows RT with the exception being Office 15 as developers are urged to use the new APIs and aim for a “modern” user experience. However, Windows 8 (x86) tablets will not have any of those restrictions.
What do you think?
Update:
Google, a company that does not allow anyone to install other browsers on their Chromebook, joins the party.

We share the concerns Mozilla has raised regarding the Windows 8 environment restricting user choice and innovation. We’ve always welcomed innovation in the browser space across all platforms and strongly believe that having great competitors makes us all work harder. In the end, consumers and developers benefit the most from robust competition.

Update 2:
Steven Sinofsky, the President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, also had some interesting things to say.

If we enabled the broad porting of existing code we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this, whether it is background processes, polling loops, timers, system hooks, startup programs, registry changes, kernel mode code, admin rights, unsigned drivers, add-ins, or a host of other common techniques.

Posted in: Mozilla Blames Microsoft, news, Says They Block Other Browsers

5/14/12