Mar

21

Apple Follows Mozilla

posted in news, by Codrut Nistor


If you have a good product that's not promoted properly, that's even worse than a bad product that is sold/advertised by people that know how and what to do. Apple's Safari entered the Windows realm not so long ago, and Apple didn't do anything special to promote it. In fact, Safari had quite a few problems on Windows, until now, but I have been using version 3.1 for a few days now, and it's a pretty solid piece of software, I must confess. Probably this is also the reason that made Apple follow Mozilla in starting to promote Safari aggressively. How? That's what we'll see right away...

Apple Windows Software Update tool

When I say "Apple follows Mozilla", I think about how they managed to increase the market share of their product by paying advertisers for each Firefox download, and that's only a small part of the whole story. Firefox is a very good program, but without the efforts invested by Mozilla in pushing it higher, I am sure it wouldn't have gone so far.

Now, let's get back to Apple, shall we? Apple is not paying anyone for Safari downloads, but uses their iTunes software to promote it. Pretty smart, don't you think? "In an apparent bid to rapidly gain share of the online browser market dominated by rival Microsoft, Apple is leveraging its vast iTunes install base to recommend that Windows users also download and install the latest version of its Safari web browser," reported AppleInsider's Katie Marsal.

The idea is simple - from now on, when you'll start up the Apple Software Update program in Windows, you'll also be notified about new versions of Safari, especially if you don't have it installed yet, you'll get the following message - "Safari for Windows is the fastest and easiest-to-use web browser for the PC. It displays web pages faster than any other browser and is filled with innovative features -- all delivered in an efficient and elegant user interface."

That's not a bad idea, not bad at all, in my opinion. What do you think?

6 Comments on “Apple Follows Mozilla



1

Bloggero, on March 21, 2008

I can't live without extensions! so Safari is downloaded , but I don't use it, this don't help them at all, You need to use it to help them. Maybe in few years.... who knows..

2

Apple News and Information » Blog Archive » Alert - Apple product update, on March 22, 2008

[...] Apple Follows Mozilla By Codrut Nistor The idea is simple - from now on, when you’ll start up the Apple Software Update program in Windows, you’ll also be notified about new versions of Safari, especially if you don’t have it installed yet, you’ll get the following message … BindApple - http://bindapple.com [...]

3

wison, on March 22, 2008

Everybody does this, why not Apple? When you are downloading adobe reader (everybody need it right?) if you are not paying attention, you will download other software too (i did this!). It's an inexpensive way to promote safari (don't need to pay google, advertisers, etc)

4

Mozilla’s CEO Says Apple Is Wrong, on March 22, 2008

[...] Apple Follows Mozilla Mar [...]

5

Truth&Reconciliation, on March 22, 2008

I have used IE7, Firefox, and Safari and they are all basically the same. The load times are not any diffrent and you can use add-ons on all of them. I think Apple using Itunes to promote Safari is bad because they are just spamming them.

6

proog, on March 23, 2008

This kind of promotion is stupid and of quite some annoyance to users. I almost installed it but noticed and unchecked it. I don't care whether it's Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft - this aggressive approach is outrageous. Of course I do understand the folks at Apple/Mozilla/whatever, but they shouldn't be doing this to their userbase. At least have it unchecked by default so users aren't tricked into downloading it.

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