

Why rivals Google and Apple agree on HTML5 - cshenoy
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/06/why-rivals-google-and-apple-agree-on-html5

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Kilimanjaro
They don't agree, they both need it to be ahead of the competition in the web
arena. Microsoft lost a lot of time trying to hold the web back while they
milked the most of the desktop world. Now they are catching up in desperation
as they see their internet flagship IE sink to lowest levels ever.

So, all agree in HTML5, they all support it, because they all need it.

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emehrkay
I don't think that the idea of Microsoft "trying to hold back the web" has
ever crossed my mind, but damn if that isnt true. They are even shipping an
IE7-level browser with Windows Phone 7

~~~
metageek
Oh, absolutely. That was their beef with Netscape, way back when: Netscape was
a platform for delivering apps independent of the OS. NS was very explicit
about it, talking about "crossware", applications written in HTML+JS+Java that
would work on any OS where Netscape ran. It was premature—NS's one big
crossware app, Netcaster, was slow and clunky—but still very scary to anybody
that sold OSes.

(Edit: actually, it probably wasn't scary to any OS vendor but MS; the others
were all happy to think that users might move to applications that could run
on their OSes, too.)

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denisonwright
Google and Apple benefit from the volume of sales of apps through their "app"
stores. By supporting a standard (and helping it be a good one, not one that
has many proprietary interpretations), they can help extend the reach of apps,
reduce development cost/time of app developers, and possibly increasing the
volume of apps that get sold through their stores.

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Timmy_C
This article says a lot about HTML5 but I don't think the author actually
knows what it is. He's not a programmer and he seems to start from the
position that programming languages are things which can be "owned."

~~~
chunkbot
If a single entity controls the platform for it, a programming language is
effectively owned. For all practical purposes, Apple owns the platform for
Objective-C. If more apps are developed using a cross-platform standard like
HTML5 than a single-platform like iOS, that reduces lock-in, so why would
Google or Apple want that? That Google want HTML5 to succeed (despite their
own Android platform) is pretty much given. The author, however, is arguing
that Apple _also_ wants HTML5 to succeed. Why? To prevent another platform
from successfully competing with iOS, so that Apple can continue to offer the
best user experience.

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mindstab
I think he's trying to say that Apple don't view it as a zero sum game in that
they either get ios developers or some other platform does. By promoting HTML5
everyone gets those developers, including them, and so if everyone developers
in html5 they essentially have all the competition plus who ever is natively
developing, so they have access to a host of programs that might otherwise
only be available on competing platforms.

