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RIM acquires WebKit vendor for mobile browsing

By Sean Michael Kerner on August 24, 2009 2:29 PM

From the 'Whither Mozilla?' files:

I'm calling this one early. WebKit is the winner of the mobile browsing war.

WebKit the browsing engine behind Google Android (and Chrome), Apple Safari (and the iPhone) is soon to be the browsing engine behind RIM Blackberry devices.

What's left for Mozilla (and Windows)? Probably more than a few devices, but RIM's endorsement of WebKit is a big deal. RIM is buying its way into WebKit with the acquisition of mobile browser vendor Torch Mobile. Financial terms of the deal have not yet been publicly disclosed.

"Torch Mobile's team of highly skilled developers has been actively involved in Open Source development and includes contributors, committers and reviewers of the WebKit project," Torch Mobile said on its website. "As part of RIM, these developers will continue to be active participants in the WebKit development community."

What I'd expect to see from RIM is a new browser for Blackberry devices, sooner rather than later. My early (safe) guess is that this new browser will be based on WebKit, it will offer performance and features that other WebKit based browsers offer users.

Apple has set a standard for mobile browser performance with Safari on the iPhone. It's one that that I think, other mobile handset vendors are keen to replicate.

Windows Mobile (and CE) has tried with limited success in my opinion to make a dent in the mobile browsing space with the mobile version of Internet Explorer.

Mozilla has been trying to get its mobile browser effort Fennec off the ground too. So far, Fennec is still in development and not really suitable for general deployment or use. Fennec is based on Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine which is a competitive effort to WebKit.

Has WebKit now beaten Gecko? Not on the desktop, but on the mobile web, how can any other vendor now catch up?

The hottest most popular phones on the planet, iPhone, Android and Blackberry all run (or soon will) WebKit. This is a great boost for RIM and I think it will finally be the catalyst that will help to push them back, in terms of tech as being a leader in mobile browsing.

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