David Pierce, writing for The Verge:

Mike Cannon-Brookes, the CEO of enterprise software giant Atlassian, was one of the first users of the Arc browser. Over the last several years, he has been a prolific bug reporter and feature requester. Now he’ll own the thing: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company, the New York-based startup that makes both Arc and the new AI-focused Dia browser. Atlassian is paying $610 million in cash for The Browser Company, and plans to run it as an independent entity.

The conversations that led to the deal started about a year ago, says Josh Miller, The Browser Company’s CEO. Lots of Atlassian employees were using Arc, and “they reached out wondering, how could we get more enterprise-ready?” Miller says. Big companies require data privacy, security, and management features in the software they use, and The Browser Company didn’t offer enough of them.

I get it. Later in the same article, there’s this:

As for what this all means for The Browser Company’s browsers, it’s still too early to say for sure. Miller promises no favored-nation features for Atlassian products, nor any Microsoft Edge-style popups begging you to sign up for Jira. Miller says the team is even more committed to being a truly cross-platform product, and that Windows in particular is about to get a lot more attention.

But “How could we get more enterprise-ready?” has never been a north-star principle for great user-focused software. I personally have never seen the appeal of Arc or Dia, but Safari truly speaks to me and my taste. Alternative browsers, by definition, are meant for people who are dissatisfied with existing browsers. So while I don’t use Arc or Dia, I’ve always been rooting for The Browser Company. I even dig the company name.

But this seems like bad news. I just don’t see how Atlassian/Jira DNA can possibly be a good thing to inject into an innovative user-focused web browser.

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