As if the "Big 5" browsers weren't enough...

[Joe Average]

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and co-creator of the original web browser NCSA Mosaic, is at it again. After pulling out of Netscape before the full-on "Dot Com" crash years past and moving into a startup that never really went anywhere, he's now throwing his backing towards another browser called RockMelt (yes, I'm serious) - but that could just end up being the company name and the browser could be something else entirely.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219400103

So, what does the [H]orde think... do we really need yet another browser? Can someone else move in on the current Big 5 turf and do something unique and "special" enough to consider it even being installed on your hardware?

 

[heatlesssun]

Yeah I was wondering when this was going to come up. There could be some merit to this if the idea is to integrate services into the browser, like Facebook and Twitter API's. If the world is moving to the cloud and SOA a browser that can actually consume these services as first class citizens makes sense, like the evolution of Ajax. Maybe I have this all wrong but I think this is sort of the point.

 

[number69]

I used Netscape all of the time back in the day. I was designing websites back in the 90's so for testing purposes I would use multiple browsers.

If he can create a good browser i'll use it.

 

[Joe Average]

In case people missed it, Office 2010 will have heavy integration for social networking sites/portals. The videos from that event a few weeks ago, when they were demoing Office 2010, made extensive mentioning of those features... remains to be seen how they're implemented but, at least Microsoft is on it.

 

[heatlesssun]

Already have the Office 2010 tech preview installed on two machines including an Eee PC 1000H which runs it great and was looking at some of this stuff but haven't had a chance to really play as I've been focused on my tablet right now.

Doesn't look like the world much is looking at at least the thick client. Everyone wants to see the web version.

 

[phide]

I anticipate another WebKit-based browser. We probably don't need any more of those, do we?