Mozilla Launches New Developer Tools Lab

Mozilla has just announced its Developer Tools Lab--headed up by a new group that will focus on "the research and development of developer tools for the open web." According to Mozilla officials, "the primary initiative of the newly formed squad is to create Web development tools that make life better for Web developers, increase developer productivity, enable compelling user experiences, and promote the use of open standards." Here's more on what to expect.

The new Developer Tools Lab will headed up by Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith who have been hired for the job. They are the co-founders of Ajaxian and the Ajax Experience. The links just provided lead to posts from them about the lab's formation. The Ajaxian site also has a video posted featuring Dion and Ben talking about the lab.

There isn't a great deal of information yet on what the new lab will focus on specifically, but it is clear that developers from around the world will be encouraged to collaborate on new tools. "Over the coming weeks, we’ll be building up a team and sharing more details with the community," says Ben Galbraith.

In other Mozilla-related news, there is additional confirmation that Mozilla is set to start testing its mobile browser called Fennec. The key thing to understand about this mobile browser is that developers of Firefox extensions will be aggressively encouraged to transfer their existing extensions for use with Fennec--which we reported on last week. Are the extensions for Firefox part of why you use it as your desktop browser as opposed to alternatives? 'Nuff said.