Firefox- Disruptive or Sustaining Innovation?

Here's a good post by Frank Hecker on evaluating whether or not Firefox is a disruptive technology or innovation as defined in the Innovator's Dilemma and the Innovator's Solution. These books both provide an excellent theoretical foundation for thinking about innovation. The post and its associated links are a great introduction to the ideas of disruptive and sustaining innovations. (This wikipedia article also provides a very good definition and can serve as another great introduction to the idea of a disruptive innovation.) Additionally, Hecker's post does a very good job analyzing the relevant elements of the browser market to draw solid conclusions.

Given Microsoft's recent announcements- the above article is quite timely. This BBC article talks about Microsoft's announcement to integrate RSS support into the next version of IE- with a mention that Firefox already has it. Without specific numbers there's also a comment that Firefox has been "gnawing away at IE's market dominance." This came a few weeks after Microsoft announced adding tabbed browsing to the upcoming release as well as making it available via a toolbar for current IE. Tabbed browsing was another big feature on which Microsoft followed Firefox's lead.