Skyfire has revealed that it has halted development on a BlackBerry version of its mobile browser software in favour of an Android version. Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck gave a number of reasons for the decision:
- We see Android as a fast-rising ecosystem, with a rich, totally open developer environment, a healthy app market and a healthy advertising and search ecosystem. The Android OS has a tremendous amount of interest from handset makers and carriers, and also has a strong need for making the explosion of video more network optimized (Skyfire’s wheelhouse).
- The Blackberry developer environment is not as favorable for cutting-edge application development. The APIs are fragmented and inconsistent, and the Java virtual machine Blackberry requires is not efficient.
Skyfire is planning to return to its BlackBerry version once BlackBerry OS 6.0 is released as it should include a webkit browser (based on Iris from Torch Mobile which RIM acquired recently).
Skyfire promises to soon reveal its Android-based browser.