Mobile browser goes open source, and even Ericsson joins the party

This forces the company to step up its own attempts to create a leading mobile experience, and is likely to push it beyond its own OS some time soon. The recent beta release of its Deepfish mobile browser hints at a new approach, and a stepping up of the war with Nokia for control of the mobile platform. So far Nokia, with its browser strategy embracing both Apple's open source Safari and Opera, has been ahead of the game in trying to promote a standard and intuitive way to browse web pages on a handset. Nokia and Apple are working on making web pages look good on a small screen by focusing on a browser that behaves so intelligently that it can fluidly relay out the page, using some underlying understanding of how text and graphics need to appear on a small screen for humans to be comfortable with them.

But Microsoft is taking the other main route to mobile browsing - changing the whole way the tool functions. The Deepfish principle is simple. The web page downloads as a thumbnail, which is fairly impossible to view properly but acts as a navigation aid, and then the consumer is forced into the extra step of having to zoom in to the particular part of the web page that has the data or graphics that he or she wants to view.  
 
If Microsoft can precipitate a new paradigm in browser usage (locate and zoom) then it will have the intellectual property to invade the rest of the mobile market, potentially through patent royalties or partnerships, and break free of the Windows stranglehold.  
 
One of the reasons why Deepfish appeared last month was because of the free beta release, just a week earlier, of the open source Mozilla-based Minimo project, which aims to offer a replacement for the Windows Mobile browser. This browser supports both JavaScript and Ajax, has tab browsing, RSS support, and its own security tools and support for widgets. In other words the open source community is attempting to invade the small area of mobile turf that Microsoft has preserved for itself.  

Other open source players are joining the fray and seeking to keep Microsoft from gaining the same position in the mobile browser as Internet Explorer has on the PC. Microsoft cannot necessarily rely on its old ally Intel in this new world - the chip giant is increasingly focused on a dual Windows/Linux roadmap for its Ultra-Mobile PC architecture, which it aims to make the key user device for the mobile internet market, as an alternative to an enhanced version of the cellular smartphone.

Open source body Ubuntu is one organization hoping to profit from Intel's new openness with the UMPC. It is promising a new mobile alternative to Windows-based software with a version of its increasingly popular Linux OS distribution for mobile and embedded devices. The Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project aims to create the open source platform for initial release in October, and Intel is contributing staff to the project to work alongside members of the Ubuntu community.

Intel's interest is significant - the chip giant's latest design for the Ultra-Mobile PC, the platform that it aims to position as the successor to the current laptops and smartphones, supported Linux as well as Windows and represented a recognition that the old Wintel alliance cannot rule the mobile market as it has the PC sector. Intel will offer "significant resources" to the Ubuntu project and has already demonstrated a prototype of the mobile Ubuntu OS on the UMPC, along with mobile Gnome.

The focus of interest may be on the client interface - stimulated further by Sun's recent more aggressive moves to take control of the mobile implementations of its now-open sourced Java. But perhaps the greatest sign that open source will be the dominant software model in the next generation of mobile broadband systems comes from the server, rather than the device, end, with Ericsson taking a "quantum leap" into open source despite a whole heritage based in closed systems.

As important as the device interface in delivering the full mobile internet experience will be the application server and, in particular, the move to the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Here, Sun is carving out a role for the enterprise - as opposed to mobile - edition of Java, also now open source, in supporting server applications for wireless networks. With Ericsson, it will develop a series of Java server applications for IMS, and will contribute these to the GlassFish J2EE open source community, itself a huge breakthrough for Ericsson, whose interest in moving from the closed cellular world into open source has been far less developed than that of Nokia or Motorola (despite the importance of Linux in the telco server sector).

While Martin Harriman, vice president of marketing and business development at Ericsson Multimedia, showed the customary sang-froid of his company by merely saying of open source: "This is a big step for us [and] we've never worked like this before", Sun's executives were far more effusive, probably because Sun's success in the world of converged telcos is far more dependent on Ericsson's support than vice versa. So Rich Green, the high profile senior VP of software at Sun, enthused: "For them to say the leading edge technology that is going to power their next big round of business is going to be in open source is a huge quantum leap for a company like that." He was not far off the truth - Ericsson is the most embedded of all the vendors in traditional telco supplier models, and still profiting from them very healthily.

Now, its support for Java and GlassFish will, it believes, enable it to enhance its IMS platform ahead of those of rivals, attracting the input of the wider Java community. Any initiatives that will increase the variety and usefulness of mobile applications, and therefore uptake of mobile devices, will in turn stimulate demand for cellular infrastructure. For GlassFish, the new pact allows it to broaden its remit beyond its traditional enterprise apps base and into wireless networks, in return gaining experience that will be useful for creating mobile enterprise systems. For the mobile sector at large, the agreement is the clearest sign to date of the new world order.