Is Microsoft going to adopt Webkit? (yes, but..)

Steve Ballmer was down under giving his developers, developers, developers spiel when one of the young Microsofties asked a question that would normally evoke a chair throwing.

"Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?"

Instead of catching a chair to the head as per usual, the young developer got a surprising answer out of the Microsoft CEO.

"That's cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky," Ballmer said.

"There will still be a lot of proprietary innovation in the browser itself so we may need to have a rendering service. Open source is interesting. Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8."

Really? Microsoft adopting Webkit would be a sea change in their propietary philosophy. Why would Microsoft, the clear leader with around three quarters of the browser marketshare, consider using an open source browsing engine like Webkit?

In my opinion, there is only one answer.

Mobile.

Internet Explorer doesn't scale down very well at all. IE7 doesn't work that well on slower netbooks. Netbooks are a big growth area in the PC space right now. It is much slower than an optimized Firefox, Opera or Safari.

On smartphones, Windows Mobile devices don't do Web browsing nearly as well as their Symbian counterparts. Sure, you can download a very capable Opera Mobile browser, but Microsoft can't control Opera.

Mobile IE is way behind Webkit in speed, compatibility and features. Anyone who has browsed the Web on a Windows Mobile device compared to an iPhone or Nokia N810 knows that Mobile IE isn't even in the same ballpark as Webkit.

It also doesn't help that many mobile websites are being developed with Webkit in mind. Google Android's browser (Chrome) is also Webkit. Adobe's Air platform is Webkit.

So, will Microsoft adopt Webkit for its mobile browser? I'm not sure. But it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility...especially with Balmer's comments. Perhaps they can rebrand it "Microsoft IE Open Mobile"or something similar.

If it does happen, it would indicate that Microsoft doesn't think it has the gumption that it once had in the browser space. It totally dominated Netscape in a few short years from having no browser. It'd be a sad showing to have to throw that all away.