Microsoft Deepfish mobile surfing is too fishy for now

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 30 March 2007 21:31

Opinion and Analysis

In an attempt to take away some of the iPhone’s Safari browser shine, Microsoft have announced they’ve been working on a mobile browser that brings the full web to the small screen – but it’s still only in very limited beta.

Remember the iPhone and its browsing experience? How could anyone forget – it made other mobile browsers, except those from Opera, seem very outdated.

After all, Microsoft’s browser for the Pocket PC seems to be suffering from the IE6 syndrome – it is a browser that has had no visible updates in years, with only Opera as the big name browser company pushing ahead with tabbed browsing and bringing the ‘full web’ to mobile devices.

But it seems the slumbering and lumbering Microsoft is slowly awakening, potentially spurred on by the slickly sublime iPhone browser, and naturally the Opera browser’s success, especially as Opera finds itself being pre-installed onto more and more Pocket PC phones, including (some of) those from Windows Mobile device leader and major manufacturer, HTC.

So, what is Deepfish? It’s a browser that aims to bring the ‘full web experience’ to mobile devices, but it’s still in a very limited beta, or even ‘alpha’ phase. You can read Microsoft’s press release on the pre-release of Deepfish, see a short video demo or even register for the beta download but you’ll find that you can’t download it as the ‘limited slots’ are already filled – I know, because I tried to download it, although they promise to email you if they open Deepfish up to more users.

By the ‘full web experience’, Microsoft means that the software brings “users quick and convenient Web browsing that more closely resembles the experience of browsing the Web on desktop computers”.

The fishily name Dr. Gary William Flake, who is a Microsoft Technical Fellow, and the director and founder of Microsoft Live Labs, answered some questions on the press release about how Deepfish works and will change the mobile browsing experience – at least, on Windows Mobile powered devices.

Dr. Flake tell us to: “Think about your mobile browsing experience today. It’s often less than intuitive, the pages don’t look like what you’ve come to expect on the desktop, and it takes a long time for a page to load. Deepfish aims to solve that problem. With the Deepfish technology, we capture the full layout of the page and deliver it to the mobile device, resulting in an experience similar to that on the desktop”.

So, what more does Microsoft say about Deepfish, and what about Opera Mobile, which does what Deepfish does today, and much more, yet has already been available for some time? Please read onto page 2 for the conclusion...