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Fennec , the mobile version of the Firefox web browser, is now available in an early build designed for Android handsets thanks to a fan-compiled download posted on an Android developers forum . And by early, we mean unofficial, pre-alpha, device-specific and downright buggy. But for anyone interested in mobile browser developments, this port is an interesting sneak peek into the future of Firefox's mobile plans. Sponsor Fennec for Droid German developer Martin Schirr's version of Fennec is ideal for Droid users because it requires a hardware-based keyboard. Without support for touch input or multi-touch, it won't work on all flavors of the Google Android mobile operating system. It's also a hefty download - 41 MB in size. And it freezes upon first boot. Plus, it's slow and prone to crashes and bugs. But that's what pre-alpha means - especially a pre-alpha that wasn't released by the Mozilla organization itself. So what can you do with the Android version of Fennec? Well, you can test out its features, like tabbed browsing, tab synchronization between desktop and mobile and browser add-ons. Right now, there aren't too many add-ons available, but given the stage of development, that's not surprising. Fennec: Slow to Launch? We first heard of Mozilla's plans to bring Fennec to Android back in June of last year when Google announced a change in how software can run on Android. After the release of a new Android NDK that used C/C++ programming languages - the same as Firefox - Mozilla began to consider the possibilities of bringing the Fennec browser to the Google-branded mobile platform. In October, Mozilla CEO John Lilly re-confirmed the organization's plans to build an Android version, while touting its many features like support for "Javascript, CSS, Flash, SVG, video and audio." It would be "the first mobile browser to support add-ons," he said. Now it's nearly 9 months later and there's still not a usable version of the browser for Android devices - just pre-alpha builds like this. Should we be concerned? Should Mozilla? While waiting for a real version of Fennec, the popularity of Webkit-based browsers continues to grow, Opera gains mobile ground (especially on feature phones), and last month, Microsoft announced a new mobile OS launching by year-end, Windows Phone 7 Series. This OS will include an updated version of Internet Explorer Mobile that offers multi-touch gesture support and tabbed browsing, among other features. Mozilla is expected to release a working build of Fennec around the same time, but depending on the exact launch dates, they may not get to claim "first" anymore - at least among the top web browsers out there. (Third-party apps already deliver tabbed browsing on various mobile devices). That being said, support for Mozilla is still strong. And once functional, it may have a lot more to offer than its competitors. In the meantime, intrepid Android geeks will be definitely be interested in giving this new fan-compiled Fennec build a look. However, general Android users should probably stay away for now - this version is by no means meant for daily use. Discuss

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Mobile Firefox Comes to Android (Sort of)

In growing technology markets, the rate of innovation increases as the technologies become more accessible. That's what is most significant about the announcement from Dell today that it is now offering servers, loaded and ready to go. The servers are designed with the power and optimized for customers that wish to create their own cloud-based infrastructures, be they public or private services. For instance, this might include customers that provide high performance computing (HPC), SaaS or wish to build their own public or private cloud. Sponsor Dell's Mark Cathcart puts it this way: "Perhaps significantly, one of the more important parts of this set of announcements are the turnkey cloud solutions comprised of pre-tested, pre-assembled and fully-supported hardware, software and services enabling customers easily and quickly to deploy and manage cloud infrastructures with confidence, taking much of the guesswork out of building and running efficient private and public clouds. This is a key theme of our "Efficient Enterprise" Strategy and best value solutions." Of interest is Microsoft's involvement with Dell. The two will work together on the Windows Azure platform. Microsoft will continue to invest in Dell hardware for Windows Azure infrastructure. The new push is focused on mid to medium-sized businesses. These are companies that face increasing data demands that can overcome a company's infrastructure. According to a post on Venture Beat , IDC estimates that companies store 500 billion gigabytes of data today and that will double every 18 months. People are communicating via their smart phones and portable devices in addition to the work done in the office. With a spike, a company can find itself with its network down. The new servers also represent a new generation of hardware that is designed to save on power consumption and cooling, major costs associated with data centers. According to Dell, the PowerEdge C-Series servers come in three basic models: PowerEdge C1100: This is a high-memory, power-efficient, cluster-optimized compute node server PowerEdge C2100: High performance data analytics, cloud compute platform and cloud storage server PowerEdge C6100: 4-node cloud and cluster optimized shared infrastructure server The servers run on Intel's quad-core Xeon 5500 and six-core Xeon 5600 processors. Discuss

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Dell: Build Your Own Cloud

Early bird registration for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 is almost over. You only have a few more days to get your tickets for just $295. Click here to get your ticket at this special price. The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit will take place May 7, 2010 , in Mountain View, California and will be an exploration of the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Sponsor As with our first event, the Real-Time Web Summit last October, the Mobile Summit will be in the 'unconference' format. We discovered in October that the unconference is a perfect complement to our brand, because it encourages a high quality two-way dialog. Not only that, but the knowledge and ideas that came out of our Real-Time Web Summit were practical and useful - we got a lot of great feedback about that. As with our previous event, the Mobile Summit will be facilitated by Kaliya Hamlin , who in my opinion is the best in the business at this style of event. We're using the same venue too, the beautiful Computer History Museum. Mobile was one of our top five trends last year and continues to undergo explosive growth , so our aim with this event is to help you navigate the opportunities. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of mobile! Because it will be you - the attendees - who ultimately set the agenda. You can begin adding your suggestions now. We will have two main tracks at this Summit, Development and Business . Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks: Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. If you're a company in the Mobile Internet market, you may be interested in helping sponsor this event. Please contact our COO Sean Ammirati for more information on the sponsor options. The ReadWriteWeb team is excited about our second event and we can't wait to discuss the opportunities in Mobile with you on May 7. You can find banners and logos to link to our event here , if you're so inclined. We hope to see you on May 7! Discuss

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Mobile Summit Early Bird Pricing - Only One Week Left!

The effort to bring Facebook into the enterprise continues with more services using Outlook as a gateway to extend a contact network and use as a foundations for a CRM environment. SenderOK is one of the latest effiorts to give more context to email by showing a picture of the sender in an email message. Too bad it only works on Windows XP or Vista. Ugh. Sponsor But let's take a look at the service as we are seeing more services that use email as a foundation for a social CRM environment. SenderOK compares itself to Microsoft's Outlook Soclal Connector and Xobni , an email plug-in that provides a search and profile element for Outlook. But we hear a lot of criticism that Xobni is a memory hog and slows down computers. As one reader said about Xobni in our last post concerning Outlook plug-ins : "Interesting article, although I have my doubts about Xobni which I used for several months but had to uninstall as it had gotten to the point where it was nearly impossible to use (too slow). Harmony sounds promising; sharing documents in place of merely sending them as attachments (hence overloading the network) is becoming critical if one wants to keep only one copy and not scatter several around." To be fair, Xobni is the leader in this space compared to other services. They have a loyal following. It makes sense that companies like SenderOK would go after this sector of the market. SenderOK features include a smart mapping capability to give a view of the person's unread email across multiple accounts. It will also prioritize the email. Our interest stems from the SenderOK "business card" feature. Email includes an image of the person and their profile information in the header of the message. In Outlook Social Connector, the image of the sender blocks out the message. In Xobni, the image and contact information appears in a widget. We expect these services to proliferate as more startups turn their attention to Outlook as a way to build a user base. Xobni has proven that this approach works. Further, Google Apps now integrates with third party applications. Services such as Zoho CRM and Intuit are leveraging GMail integration to offer hybrid applications. Perhaps 2010 will be the year email is viewed more as a foundation than a nuisance to be eliminated. Discuss

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SenderOK: Email as a Facebook Connector and Social CRM Catalyst

At the time of this writing, it's been just over two hours, 21 minutes and 14 seconds since Opera submitted Opera Mini to Apple for inclusion in the iTunes App Store. How do we know this? Opera is putting Apple's notoriously slow response time and browser monopoly on center stage today as part of its announcement that it is coming to the iPhone. Sponsor Opera first announced that it was planning to bring its mobile browser to the iPhone at the beginning of February. As we noted then, Apple's response is uncertain, as it has yet to allow any browsers that use alternative rendering engines on the iPhone. While other apps work on top of Safari, there are no other independent browsers. Opera Mini is already available for Symbian and Android and Mozilla has been working on apps for Android and Windows Mobile. A primary difference between Opera and Safari is the browser's server-side rendering, which downloads a web page to a server and compresses it before sending it to the client, in this case your phone, for viewing. This method can reduce page load-times dramatically and could be even more important for mobile browsing than it is for web viewing at home. The following sneak-peek video shows a full-featured, tabbed browser that certainly looks a lot faster than Apple's native Safari. Even if we end up trying Opera Mini and decide to stick with Safari, in the end we feel it's always better to have options when it comes to software and platforms. But then again, that's not exactly what Apple is known for, is it? Hopefully, Opera Mini will pass muster and it will be the beginning of the browser revolution for the iPhone - or, at very least, we'll have two browsers to choose from. Discuss

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Opera for the iPhone? We Sure Hope So.