Goodbye Deepfish

You will be missed. Even before it was released to the general public, it’s been discontinued and now, it’s been confirmed that Deepfish will no longer be supported. What is Deepfish anyway?

Back in 2007, I think it was some time in March, before there was the iPhone, before there was Skyfire and Opera Mobile and Iris Browser, Microsoft was working on a new browser for the Windows Mobile platform. It was called Deepfish. And here’s what it did:

And here’s the official word about it’s ending:

When Live Labs began working on Deepfish, we set out to prove our theory that there was an unmet demand for a better mobile browsing experience than what was available at the time we started the project in 2006. It wasn’t our intent to create a full browser for the preview, but rather simply demonstrate that a novel and simple new user experience was the best way to achieve that. The positive reception and incredible demand for the Deepfish technical preview went a long way towards proving that. And now, thanks in part to Deepfish, many better alternatives are emerging.

Mobile browsing is now advancing to the point where mobile devices rival the desktop—which is what we wanted to see. User experience advances such as usable touch and intuitive zooming interfaces weren’t widely available at the time. Deepfish helped drive that innovation. And now that the marketplace has caught up to where we thought it needed to go and continues to advance.

For our dedicated users still using the technical preview to this day, we are sorry to announce we will be retiring the proxy service on September 31, 2008. The Deepfish client will no longer function after that date as a result.

Thanks to all of those who enthusiastically supported Deepfish. We learned a lot from you, and we assure you that your feedback is influencing Microsoft’s future products.

You will be missed Deepfish. If only Microsoft had continued to work on you, who knows where you would have been today and what you would have done for the Windows Mobile platform. (via pocketnow.com)

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