August 05, 2003
Interview with Eric Meyer, Part I
THERE has been a lot of movement in the browser scene this year. Apple introduced their own browser Safari, Microsoft cuts the standanlone version of Internet Explorer and AOL drops Netscape to mention just a few headlines. It looks like time is changing for the browsing people and evolution is making progress. Beeing even more directly affected by recent developments Opera Journal had the chance to speak to Eric Meyer who is kindly sharing some personal thoughts and perspectives with us.
OJ:
What do you think about recent developments and what have the past two years of working for Netscape meant to you?
EM:
I couldn't be more proud of my time at Netscape. It's really sort of astonishing, when you think about it: Netscape funded close to ten full-time and part-time positions whose job was to promote standards,
not proprietary technology, and to spread that message as far and wide as possible. They may well have been doing it for selfish reasons, but that hardly matters. Can you think of another company that would have done the same? The standards team was able to inform, educate, and proactively help a lot of sites get better cross-browser behavior by using standards. In our own way, we helped make the Web itself better, and we made a difference. It was an honor just to be a part of the team.
As for the browser space, I can't quite make up my mind as to how things are going to go. There are some interesting rumors about the direction Microsoft is taking with Longhorn, and frankly I've gained
the impression that they may be more or less abandoning the public Web space. If that happens, browsers like Opera, Firebird, and Konqueror/Safari will gradually claim more and more of the browser
market. People might counter that Microsoft has the market locked up and could block any attempts to take away any of its browser share, but that presumes that Microsoft cares enough to bother. I'm not
convinced that they do.
Of course, if I'm wrong, then the struggle will be largely the same as it has been for the last several years: everyone trying to register on a radar that's almost completely filled with Explorer. I think that the field's a little more open than it used to be, but not by much. The unfortunate part is that until we get back some diversity in the browser space, developers will continue to dance to Explorer's tune. That makes it tougher to sell people on the benefits of standards, although I'm certainly going to give it a try!
Read the second part of the interview here.
The Opera Journal
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