Furthermore, the announcement asserts that Mozilla Firefox will support VP8 for HTML5 video (along with Google Chrome, naturally).

I mentioned in passing before the FSF request to Google to take this action, and if this news turns out to be true I think it will be a very positive development indeed.

There are patent concerns, but Google has a very good record on patents, so I am optimistic there.

Apple?

A big question is will Apple support VP8? They seem to have a lot invested in H.264, and a fierce independent streak these days, so I’m not sure if they would come on board. Sure would be nice, although I suspect they may simply not see an immediate benefit (having the proper licensing already in place for H.264) and defer.

Microsoft?

Seriously, who cares? Whatever Microsoft does will be 5 years too late anyway after trying (and failing) to introduce their own in-house similar (but incompatible) “standard”.

Although it may disappoint Miguel de Icaza,  Microsoft no longer calling the shots on the web is one of the best things that could happen to humanity outside of actual cold fusion on the desktop. And I ain’t talking about another crappy Adobe product.