The web: because users deserve to be the superheroes of their platform [MEF]

What’s the most popular programming language on the web? Java? Yes, who invented it? Brendan Eich? You are correct. He also happens to be the CTO and co-Founder of Mozilla — yes that guy.

According to that guy, in five years the web will be the preferred development platform and closed platforms will start welcoming the web. He reckons that the number of web users will jump from 2.4-billion users to 3.8-billion in the next five years and by 2023 that number will hit 5.6-billion — all this will enable this coming shift from native to web.

So his question is, why aren’t more people thinking about the developing for an open web on mobile devices? No one? Well he decided to do it.

Through Firefox, Mozilla is doing exactly that, with a focus on Games, plus Simple Push, WebRTC and emerging Web APIs. Firefox OS, is big and will mostly likely change how people experience their mobile devices and the possibilities of a web-based experience on mobile.

Mozilla is all about disruption and with Firefox OS, that’s the plan, disrupt mobile.

“The web will become the common platform,” Eich told the MEF Global Forum audience. He thinks that native apps will be pretty much be dead. He reckons we are seeing this already as our online life becomes much more pervasive and open, with technologies that are incredibly precise such as location services.

These however, he concedes, present some new challenges such as issues around user privacy, surveillance and transparency and those are handled in an open environment.

The more open and web-based things get the greater the internet of things becomes such as ambient computing: where the internet exists in the walls, paint and inside the human body.

Currently Eich says that Firefox OS is looking at different form factors and shaping the web as a platform by building the product.

“We are breaking down silos, users get captured by silos,” he says. “The web is about people, you should be able to move your media wherever you go and not re-buy. The user deserve an open platform and the be to superheroes of their platform. HTML claims to be doing that, more versions will come.”

For Eich, the web is winning the mobile platform war because it is the future and the people are already there.