Wandering electrons... but not too far

In fact, a beta version has already been released, although you might want to read this before downloading it!

Pretty big news ! It even made it into the New York Times. (EDIT: now a pay article.)

The Safari browser has an interesting love/hate relationship with Mac users. However it does receive universal praise for its clean interface. Apple is of course bragging about how fast it is on their web page, but we'll wait for some non-biased tests before we close the speed question.

A "beta"? Hmmm...

Some folks out there have commented that the "beta" is really something more like an early alpha. I tend to agree. I downloaded it, fired it up (the interface is quite clean, I must admit) and went to the New York Times website and... Problem: the headlines aren't displayed! So then to Yahoo.com, where, well, NOTHING is right:yikes:

I'll add that I'm on a completely legal and up-to-date Windows XP sp2.

I think we can safely say that the good folks at Apple jumped the gun a bit with this "beta" release. But I'll be faire and check back in when they've cleaned things up a bit.

In any case, that isn't the question that I'd like to address here. What I'd like to talk about is...

What effect might Safari for Windows have on Opera's market share

The presence of Safari in the Windows world is not a bad thing in and of itself. Indeed, the more alternative browsers there are, the more making standard-compliant sites become important.

BUT

Only if all browsers have a sufficiently large part of the market.

Nobody cared about making their websites compatable for Firefox before it started getting relatively big. But when it did, the overall effect was that programmers started thinking more about cross-browser compatability, which was an advantage for the other smaller, but more standard-compliant browsers such as Opera.

If you dominate a market, you have every interest to make propriety features that oblige even moreso the use of your browser. Programmers are obliged in turn to program for your features. This is the Microsoft model.

If alternatives are sufficiently popular you no longer can do this.

Let's imagine that the Windows browser market was equally divided, 25% each for IE Firefox Opera and Safari.

In this case, designers would be obliged to make websites that work in all four browsers, and all four browsers would be obliged to make all websites work correctly.

The easiest (therefore cheapest, and that's important in business) way to achieve that is with norms.

Now, the question is: is Opera going to be "bumped" from its place as the third windows browser by the Mac advertising bulldozer?

That'd be a real shame, because Opera is finally a browser that need not bow down its head to anyone; au contraire, the other browsers should be bowing down to Opera's tight, light and versatile programming.

So, to sum up, Opera needs to truly enter the advertising arena now to defend and enlarge its part of the market because the arrival of Safari for Windows only makes the market more favorable for the Opera model, that is web standards compliancy.

And web standards compliancy is good for all of us, browser developers as well as browser users. It frees us of worrying about whether or not the webpage is going to display correctly, and allows us to concentrate on improving the user experience with the browser itself.