“Three of the tech industry’s biggest names — Microsoft, Google and Apple — each has a significant in-house browser development effort, with periodic fresh releases. Then, of course, there is the Mozilla Foundation, the folks behind the popular open-source browser Firefox,” Lee Gomes reports for Forbes.

“Competition is always good, but especially these days with browsers. Features are being added to them that may, in a year or two, make a browser-based application look and feel no different from a desktop one,” Gomes reports.

“This new approach to programming doesn’t yet have a handy name like Ajax, though some refer to it as HTML 5… A photo-editing program based in a browser, for instance, could run entirely on your desktop,” Gomes reports.

“Who wins and who loses with this new approach? Adobe might not look too kindly upon it. The maker of Flash software would prefer that programmers stick with its software. Microsoft usually doesn’t warm to standards it can’t control; it is also pushing its new Silverlight multimedia program, which performs some of the functions of HTML 5 software,” Gomes reports. “Apple, Google and Mozilla, by contrast, favor anything that curbs Microsoft’s market position.”

Full article here.