Jeeves to build ASKBrowser based on Firefox
Mozilla's On Fire
http://blog.ask.com/2005/02/mozillas_on_fir.html
Jeeves have been talking to Mozilla about Firefox, AJ DTS, open source and.... wait for it...... ASKBrowser! hehe..
Bit of a mix eh?
The neat thing is that they appear to be both courting Firefox, ala Google and considering AJ DTS going open source - getting into bed with the OS dev community would be a smart move on top of their recent trendy aquisition of Bloglines im thinking. And quite frankly, it's the most exciting stuff to come from the Butler in a very long time.
We went on to discuss three subjects: 1) AJ Desktop Search 2) AJ Leveraging Firefox Browser 3) XUL platform.
We discussed Ask Jeeves desktop search and the notion of open-sourcing it. We're open at two levels. Contributing just the core desktop indexing technology or possibly the entire desktop search application. They discussed how/what they would evaluate before accepting a major piece of code/product contribution: code size, internationalization, etc. Whether or not we partner with Mozilla on this effort, Chris and team thought it was a good idea for us to pursue overall.
ASK to build Browser
Im not so sure on this one. It doesn't fill me with enthusiasm or confidence, my first thought is bad move...
We shared AJ view and support for open source standard, especially on the desktop, and their efforts on Firefox and Thunderbird, both of which I'm impressed with. I shared that Mozilla browser didn't do it for me but Firefox certainly converted many of AJ engnineering (including myself) over exclusively to Firefox. We explained that we want to support and leverage Firefox by building extensions to and plug-ins within Firefox. We discussed the fact that it doesn't make sense for us to build a browser from scratch, but we think building Ask specific functionalities on top of Firefox to build an AJ-branded or co-branded browser could make sense in 2005.
So, how 'bout it, the ASKBrowser?
I dunno...
Not that I'm not a big bloglines or firefox fan, but I'm starting to get to the point of wanting to askjeeves just what business they think they're in...
Maybe it's just me, but in a week where the number of articles I've seen about AskJeeves has exceeded the cumulative number of hits they've sent all of my sites all week, I think they need to focus on their core product a little more, and on add-on products a little less...
Works for me
>We explained that we want to support and leverage Firefox by building extensions to and plug-ins within Firefox.
I liked this part. I would love to have a Teoma or Ask toolbar on FF. I was just looking for one the other day. I think it would be great to have additional toolbar access to a non-Google DB.
>build an AJ-branded or co-branded browser could make sense in 2005.
It shouldn't be that hard. It is not like they are building a rendering engine. FF with an AJ theme and some AJ extensions built in. Incorporate MyJeeves, Bloglines and Jeeves search in it as defaults from the start. Mail em out on CD's, make a deal with PC manufacturers - you can do that with a browser what you can't do with just extensions alone.