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Which Organizations Have Standardized on Mozilla?
andy brunetto asks: " We are investigating email clients to deploy as our "standard" at the college where I work. I'm trying to find out who is using Mozilla for their email. When I say "who" I mean organizationally, as I realize 99% of us geeks already use it. What organizations out there are rolling out Mozilla as their standard web and/or email client, and why? Yes, we are considering using Thunderbird, once it is final. Thanks!" Hopefully this will make companies realize that the Internet isn't comprised of just IE users.
Really? Everyone I know uses pine, Eudora, or Mail.app - you should be careful about making assumptions based on your own personal circumstances before you try to extrapolate data for use at an organization.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
In the corporate environments where I've been working, Microsoft servers, browsers and email remain the status quo.
As a web developer, I use Mozilla because it's stricter about standards, and pages that render well in Moz almost always look the same in IE, while the reverse isn't true. One coworker gives me a (humorous) hard time about my refusal to use Microsoft FrontPage or IE when our company is unquestionably "a Microsoft shop".
Seems like there's no businesses -- certainly not incorporated ones -- want to hire experts in free software like Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL and Mozilla when 2kServer, IIS, SQL Server and IE are what all the other big companies are using first. Mozilla's got an uphill battle, and it knows it.
Hopefully this will make companies realize that the Internet isn't comprised of just IE users.
Moreover, I fail to see how tallying "We use Mozilla" would go very far in convincing anyone that Internet users aren't predominantly IE users, anymore than tallying "Who uses IE" responses on an MS-fanboy site would indicate IE's pre-eminence.
To build a convincing argument here you need scientifically conducted surveys, not optional queries aimed at users of a particular browser on a niche site with considerable user self-selection.
i've been trying to get my small company to switch to Mozilla mail, but not many have because it doesn't have Outlook's calendar and scheduling features.
On the other hand, nobody invites me to meetings any more!
"as I realize 99% of us geeks already use [Mozilla]."
Sorry kid, but where I come from, 99% of people use Outlook and/or Exchange. Exchange or not, Outlook 2000 and XP are very capable email clients, and the easy calendar/contact integration and Palm synchronization make them the real winners. (By the way, there is a patch for Outlook 2000 that disallows opening of any harmful attachments. This comes standard with Outlook XP. I switched from Eudora two years ago and I've never even been able to open a virus-laden attachment, let alone send one, as it asks for confirmation when a program tries to automatically send something.) I browse the web using Mozilla (I'm using it right now), but Outlook wins hands-down on email.
If you want to standardize, standardize on the server side, not the client. Most organizations I have worked at standardized on IMAP (whether they did so through Exchange or another IMAP server.) IMAP has the advantage of keeping everyone's email on the server so people can access it through the web, at multiple computers, etc. The disadvantage, of course, is disk space -- you're going to need at least 10MB per account, and preferably 25MB or more, which quickly adds up. Plus, you're going to need to find a reliable way to back that up, and tape drives are expensive.
My recommendation is to standardize on IMAP, set up some webmail, and have some HOWTOs for several email clients. This being a college, you're going to find that most everyone will be using Outlook Express. Include HOWTOs for Mozilla, OE, Outlook, and whatever you choose as your webmail solution (there will be people who use the webmail exclusively.) As long as you set the standard on the server side, I don't think it's necessary to set a standard client -- just a recommended one. If you want that to be Mozilla, so be it, but understand that not everyone is going to want to use it.
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hmmmmmmmmm... I dunno if the author is looking for a survey that will hold water statistically (Slashdot, impartial? HA!). Seems like they just want to hear stories of "how and why", stuff like that. y'know, just finding out what the rest of the family is doing ^_^
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
Join the Club, we must be 2% when combined! Kmail is a great free email client that is very fast and very feature filled. With the upcoming release of Kontact KDE will have a full PIM application. The beauty of Kontact is that is uses KDE's parts system to actually just piece Kmail, Kalendar, Knotes and Kaddressbook together into one very useful application. Kmail/Kontact will be even cooler since they are working on a server component for Exchange like calander/notes sharing system. Watch out people...here comes the KDE :P
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Where I work, people use what they want to use. Many browse with IE, some use netcape or Opera, others use Konqueror or Mozilla.
For E-mail, most use Eudora, some use Outlook, pine or Kmail.
None that I know of use their web browser for E-mail.
Why do most organizations think they need to standardize on products rather than protocols or document standards? OK, the "IT department" thinks they need to provide support, but in many cases you could loosen up a bit... Use widely adopted protocols. Avoid proprietary protocols and formats that lock you in with a specific product.
)9TSS
I'll take a few random crash bugs as apposed to the over 30 megs of "security" updates one has to download for IE paired with windows. So since crash bugs are such an issue, I'll assume companies should also not be using IE? Any Microsoft software whatsoever?
I guess I am in the 1% of geeks who do not use Mozilla at all, then. I've used the 1.0 series, and while there are some nice features I have no compelling reason to switch.
I would hope that 99% of geeks were using a browser other than IE. But considering the existance of Opera, Konqueror, etc, this non-IE browser does not need to be a Mozilla-based browser.
Unfortunately, this statistic is probably not correct, and there are a lot of geeks using IE. But can they really call themselves geeks then?
#!/
Here's the easiest way to "eliminate" IE for 99% of users:
1) Set Mozilla as the default browser. (Just make sure it doesn't also take over GIF, JPEG, etc. files as well... mine did that here at home and I can't seem to wrench it back from Moz using Tools/Folder Options, but that's another story.)
2) Remove IE from the start menu and quick launch bar.
3) Profit!
Now, it's true that "iexplore.exe" will still be around somewhere, and if people really want to use IE, they can find it. But you know what -- if they're that hell-bent on using IE, let them use it. Most of your employees, however, will be just as happy with Mozilla as their default browser, so you shouldn't hear many complaints.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Yeah, 99% of us geeks use Mozilla. My ass we all use Mozilla.
I seem to recall a particular slashdot poll which asked "The browser I use most often...".
Seems that only 55% of geeks use Mozilla. I bet the actual numbers are much less, and lots of people who use IE went for the CowboyNeal option or couldn't admit that they use IE.
just answer the question and stop criticizing the submitter (me!), picking apart what a "geek" is, or going on about my choice of words? I did not ask for a review of Mozilla, or what other email/web clients exist, or your opinion on standardizing on a product. BTW, we standardize so we can provide suppoprt to the 3000+ computers here.
Not to be a smart ass (well, sorta), but what about IE? IE is at least as "unstable" as you report Mozilla to be. In my case, I've found that IE crashes far more than Mozilla does, yet I use Mozilla more than IE. I don't think that this is a criteria that many will be using to judge browsers, as both are relatively stable.
:) and the lock-in you get with MS Exchange, but the huge drawback being the fact that it is so easily comprimised by viruses and worms and whatnot.
:(
Seriously though, how many open crash bugs are left? It seems that the one you point out is somewhat complicated to duplicate, involves Mozilla interacting with Java (something that seems to cause most browsers some consternation), and is not an issue for 99% of the web-browsing public.
Not that this has anything to do with Mozilla Mail in the least. A comparison between Outlook and Mozilla Mail or Thunderbird might be a little more on topic. It seems to me that all three are, like their browser counterparts, fairly stable, and offer a fair to decent email experience.
I find that a big draw for Outlook would be it's well designed UI (seriously, it's about the only thing it's good for!
Sadly most people seem to be insanely ignorant of this point, and just keep chugging along, happily flooding the internet with Klez, Bugbear, and Sobig.
I think that the great feature that could attract people to the Mozilla team's offerings is the built-in Bayesian spam filter! Much like pop-up blocking, and, to a lesser extent, tabbed browsing, this is the kind of feature you can mention to somebody, and they go "Oh, hey... that's pretty cool!" It's definitely something that people need, given how much spam is out there, but if people don't know about it, then they will content to wallow in mediocrity.
-Colin
Things like pop up blocking are becoming something that more and more people want I think. If you were to magically substitute mozilla for IE in your office or whatever would people (really) notice? They do the same thing. Now turn on the pop up blocking and let them use use mozmail/thunderbird and suddenly it's "hey, where are my pop up|unders?" and "hey, I haven't sent out viruseses in a week or more, what's going on?"
I've noticed that because MS has integrated IE with the OS, when IE crashes it often brings down my whole system, requiring a reboot, but when Moz crashes the system is fine and I just need to reload Moz and keep going.
Personally I find IE crashes much more often than Moz, but even if they both crashed with the same frequency it's a much bigger hassle to recover from an IE crash.
I think Mozilla's really mostly a developers' browser.
Yes, it's very standards compliant but that covers most of the positive things you can say about it.
It's so standards compliant that some sites appear broken or not at all in it.
It's so slow that I avoid using it. For instance try typing in a text area. A minute or two after you typed a line it has fully appeared.
I use kde and konqueror usually does it for me, although it also has its drawbacks such as the jumping way in which it builds up a html page.
Now consider the same in Mozilla. Mozilla crashes, you don't know why blah blah. Your first port of call is Bugzilla and best case you find the bug is already logged. Reading through the comments you learn of a trivial to workaround (e.g. disable a pref). Better yet someone has already produced a patch so you roll your own version of Moz and apply it or wait for the next and reasonably frequent milestone releases. Problem solved. If there is no bug, log one, track it, ask the community for help. If you get no response, pay whoever it might be Sun, Red Hat, Netscape / AOL $$$ to fix it.
So worst case you're no more out of pocket than you were with MS. Best case you get fast and free support, a detailed description of the issue and progress updates as it is worked on.
The reason many geeks don't like IE is precisely because it doesn't "just work". Not on the OS platform they'd like to be using.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
You haven't tried recent versions of Firebird or Mozilla, have you. Nearly everyone who says that hasn't used Mozilla since the terrible 4.x series, or earlier even. Mozilla is now at least as stable as IE, approximate ly as fast, is open source, complies with standards, blocks pop-ups, has tabbed browsing, an extensions system... If you haven't tried it, and refuse to, you're just ignorant (and closed-minded).
The general policy of sending people e-mail that is mean to be "run" is a dumb, dumb idea in the first place, and that we can blame on Outlook. The fact is that those "idiot" users are just doing what the software has trained them to do - click on attachments to view them in whatever application is configured for them to run in. See a word doc - click on it to view it. See an Excel spreadsheet - click on it to view it. See a zip file - click on it to view it. See a virus program - click on it to view it - Oops!
The idea of using executable content (which is what a word document or spreadsheet really *are*) as a normal, everyday typical way to operate your business is what leads people to run things they see in their e-mail without thinking. They aren't thinking "I'm running this file". They are thinking "I'm looking at this file."
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I tried gOd using Mozilla. Oh well, seems to be unobtainable...unreachable. Must be Mozilla Thursday at g0d's house.
I have tried to Roll Out Mozilla at my work but since where I work is a MS Dev shop it is hard to get them to switch. I use Mozilla/FireBird as my main broswer. I stopped using IE about 2 year ago cause I was stick of all the fucking security problems. And I look at it like this IE is based off code from 10 years ago they still have parts of Mosaic. But at the end of the day most people us Windows and Ie comes with it, most of the Joe/Jane users out there are not going to change cause they have no real idea. Now I know this will upset some people but that is just how it is.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
I'm trying to find out who is using Mozilla for their email. When I say "who" I mean organizationally, as I realize 99% of us geeks already use it.
This is 100% wrong and I don't understand why nobody wrote it yet. If 99% geeks use Mozilla for mail, then who uses Mutt, Pine, or Evolution? Mainstream people?
Keep in mind, however, that Opera by default identifies as IE5, IE5.5, or IE6 depending on Opera's version. For all anyone knows, half of the IE "users" could be Opera users that didn't know they could change the browser ID string or thought it would be advantageous to keep it at IE so that browser detectors didn't bitch they don't have the right browser.
two = "XP and IE are very stable."
if (one && two) parallel_universe();
Your sig link? I have sigs turned off, and I use Mozilla. Who's to say most IE users aren't smart enough to turn sigs off, and the Mozilla users are. Though real geeks make their own browser from scratch. ;-)