Mozilla will officially launch its Firefox 4 web browser today

Mozilla will officially launch its Firefox 4 web browser today, after about eight months after its first public beta. But many of the features in Firefox 4 really date back to 2006, and the lengthy time to market for this release--during which Firefox usage essentially stop growing in theface of faster moving rivals--has caused the firm to step back and reevaluate its product plans. And the goal going forward is to ship smaller releases on a far timelier schedule. The question, of course, is whether it's already too late. Google has shipped an astonishing 10 major releases of its Chrome browser since its initial release over two years ago, and that company says it is able to maintain this pace by thinking of Chrome as a web service instead of a traditional software product. Even Microsoft, not known for moving quickly, has made Mozilla look sleepy by comparison: It shipped the final version of its new browser, Internet Explorer 9, last week after just 6 months in beta. Mozilla has historically had trouble meeting release dates, and Firefox 4 required an astonishing 12 beta release and two release candidate builds before the company was able to sign off on the product. For the new schedule to work, Mozilla doesn't just need to deliver smaller, more conservative updates, it needs to do something it's never done: Ship them on time. "The intention here is not to rush features, it's to let features that are done get to users without waiting forfeatures that aren't." Mozilla VP MikeShaver explained. With Firefox 4, certain browser features were ready to ship months earlier, but because they relied on other pieces of that browser version, Mozilla had to wait before shipping them. As for Firefox 4, Mozilla's new browser hopes to differentiate itself in important ways. It runs on Windows XP, for example, whereas IE 9 supports Windows Vista and 7 only. Firefox 4 has a nice new user interface, an overhauled, faster JavaScript engine, bookmark syncing,and more.