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Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

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Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#361

Post by mattlutze »

crowcroft wrote: post #173

The strategic insight behind Arc was perfect – your browser IS the Operating System, and so we should build a browser that can function as that platform. Arc had pretty good market validation with early adopters, they say that growth was flattened out but IMO that's normal for most products, and it's up to the company to find out WHY growth flattened and then solve that problem. Not kill the product and chase some en…

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton.

But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#362

Post by NaomiLehman »

drewbeck wrote: post #255

I'm a huge fan of Arc and generally not a fan of TBCNY due to their abandonment of the browser for their AI hype machine, Dia. What's odd about this acquisition is that the move to Dia was (publicly) presented as a move toward the consumer; that consumers weren't ready for a radical reinvention of the browser interface so it made sense to revert to something more standard if you wanted to do something new with the br…

Opera and Vivaldi have some impressive features up their sleeves. Similar philosophies to Arc Browser. Worth giving them a try!

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#363

Post by crowcroft »

mattlutze wrote: post #361
crowcroft wrote: post #173

The strategic insight behind Arc was perfect – your browser IS the Operating System, and so we should build a browser that can function as that platform. Arc had pretty good market validation with early adopters, they say that growth was flattened out but IMO that's normal for most products, and it's up to the company to find out WHY growth flattened and then solve that problem. Not kill the product and chase some en…

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#364

Post by jemmyw »

mattlutze wrote: post #359
crowcroft wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why tactics are so important. I would say no one has actually got the experience right yet, 'browser is the OS' has been true for a long time, and no one has delivered it yet. Similar to ambient computing and augmented reality.

One might suggest Cromebooks have done so well because Google got it more or less right.

I think Chromebooks have done so well because they're cheap and are purchased for locked down environments (education and people who really don't want complexity). Even then, I think they kind of demonstrate that the browser is NOT the OS because users and Google still felt the need to break out of the browser box, with both Android apps and Linux application support.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#365

Post by greymalik »

crowcroft wrote: post #363
mattlutze wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

RIP BeOS

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#366

Post by conceptme »

crowcroft wrote: post #363
mattlutze wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

Linux?

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#367

Post by MarcelOlsz »

odo1242 wrote: post #353
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with Arc was installing it, asking myself "I have to pay to change the app icon? wtf" and uninstalling it. Horrendous UI as well.

Personally I liked the UI (and now use Zen browser, the UI is very much a matter of taste though), but left as the browser itself kept getting worse

That's very interesting. I downloaded arc because I saw it in some twitter screenshot and I thought the UI was neat, when I could have actually been looking for Zed instead of Arc.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#368

Post by coliveira »

crowcroft wrote: post #363
mattlutze wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

OS is the perfect software to create lock in for consumers. Once a company is successful there, it is very difficult for others to compete.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#369

Post by alemanek »

crowcroft wrote: post #363
mattlutze wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

Browsers display content that follows a very specific set of standards. There are also suites of tests to verify your compliance with those standards. So, every browser that is standards compliant should work for the vast majority of websites in existence. Still a big lift but doable for talented team.

Now an OS without application compatibility is kind of DoA unless there is a very compelling reason to switch. Add in hardware compatibility and it gets even worse.

Much bigger hill to climb then incorporating an existing browser engine into a custom spin of a browser. Even a browser engine from scratch would be smaller than a new bare metal OS.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#370

Post by butterfi »

crowcroft wrote: post #363
mattlutze wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

Linux has entered the chat...
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