If you’re developing a web-based or desktop application and hope to have it takeoff with any amount of success, there is a different prerequisite you must meet for each scenario:
- If you’re creating a web application, it absolutely needs to work well in Firefox
- If you’re developing a desktop app, you need to make a Mac version in addition to the Windows one (extra credit if you also have a Linux version too)
Why? The early adopters you so desperately want and need to use and evangelize your product so that everyone else will eventually get to it increasingly use Macs and Firefox. If you ignore them by building only for Windows or Internet Explorer, they’ll ignore you too. And that will kill your business.
Let me repeat: If you’re building an application for the “consumer” (I really hate that word) market (businesses are a different situation) and want to get a lot of people using it, you cannot go the “easy” route and assume everyone is using Microsoft. Sure, most people are, but the people you need the most when you’re launching probably aren’t.