Open source impact on browser business

VisionMobile last week posted a piece on how Open Source is wrecking havoc in the browser business, especially visible with Openwave and Teleca closing shop.

I have to say that in principle I agree with the views presented in the post, but the picture however is not as simple. I wish it was so that the whole market would just converge to Webkit.

First off, Opera is doing well, especially in the Mobile market with Opera Mini. A fact is that low-end devices do not have the power to run a Webkit implementation, and they need something else to power their browsing experience. Opera is solving this problem with 2 major features, their new well performing rendering engine, and Opera Mini's server based optimization feature.

Secondly, even though Nokia and co. have made a huge push forward with Webkit, that engine alone will not commoditize the mobile browsing market. Do we really think Mozilla will just bend over in the largest browser market ever in the age of the browser? I don't think so, and there will be a tight competition between these 2 engines and a few proprietary engines for a long time. The market is just not big enough for many more providers.