Are Browser Wars Returning For Mobile?

Yahoo introduces Axis as a new mobile browser

 
We have seen browser wars for a long time ever since Microsoft went after Netscape in the 90's in a fight to see who controlled the desktop browsers. We have continued to see those wars continuing on the desktop through Chrome which has grabbed a large share of the market. They are continuing now with Yahoo adding Axis to the mix. But Axis is really an add on to desktop browser and not a true desktop browser. But, when you move to mobile devices, the browser wars are just now beginning to shape up. There is no big winner on mobile yet and the battle is in early stages right now. If you have a mobile device, you know that it is early on right now.

In the mobile browser world, desktop versions of browsers have been ported to mobile devices and there have been some which are specific to mobile. Now, it looks like things are starting to heat up and we can expect to see browser wars on mobile devices. The most recent entry is for Yahoo's Axis app for mobile devices which offers a unique view of web sites far different than the normal desktop browser interface which many are used to. It is this change which we are going to see far more of in the future.

In Yahoo's Axis app, it provides some other advantages which attempt to make things seamless. You can go from your desktop to your iPhone to your iPad and pick up where you left off on the other device. That is the future that we are headed towards where your activities move from device to device and you continue as though you never left. This will more than likely be available on Android devices in a few months and represents the way of the future for browsing.

Graphical interfaces are the future for mobile and with Yahoo's Axis, they are altering things from the text based displays we are used to on the desktop and changing things up to be a series of thumbnail pictures to help guide you in your browsing journey. That's right, your search results will be pictures instead of text. That will simplify the visual display on mobile devices for your ease of use and that is what it is all about on mobile devices.

Not to be left out, there are rumors of Facebook purchasing Opera in an effort to create their own browser. Opera already has a mobile specific browser which is very popular and performance is quite well on mobile devices. This would give Facebook a huge step up in the mobile browser wars rather than building their own. If that rumor has validity to it, Facebook will jump into the middle of the browser wars. We can expect they will take a large portion of the market share.

The question of what we can expect to see this year is up in the air. Due to so many different devices and options, it is difficult to guess where things might be headed. As an example, the browser which Amazon has created for their own browser for the Kindle Fire is a possible item. Their Silk browser may be expanded to other devices in the future and potentially could cut into the market share of other devices as a result. Whether Amazon makes a decision to expand the usage is an unknown and there is a lot of competition coming.

With mobile device growing this year, especially smart phones, we can expect to see growing competition for mobile devices.