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Getting Your Company to Migrate from IE?
RunningFerreT asks: "With all the recent warnings and recommendations on migrating from MSIE, I have come across a serious problem. The company for which I work doesn't want to, even after being informed of all the exploits and problems with Internet Explorer. Having the boss 'try out' Firefox isn't working: a single site looks bad, so IE must be better. Has anyone had success in convincing management types to switch from IE, to another more secure, standards compliant browser? If so, how did you get the job done?"
...which site? And do other sites render worse in IE than they do in Firefox?
;) and give the end users the option to switch. The upside? They get to waste an hour of company time moving into a new browser. :-p And less work for the ITS guys.
As for migrating from IE, I've never had a problem encouring people. The built-in popup blocker is almost an instant 'OK! I'm converted!'. This may or may not be helpful: http://texturizer.net/firefox/faq.html
Perhaps, distribute a company-wide email, linking to a download for Firefox (put it on a local server, first, link to that, save Moz the bandwidth.
Informatus Technologicus
I just installed Firefox, then deleted the IE icons and then created new ones that had the IE icon and said "internet explorer" but whose link went to Firefox.
No compliants, no spyware since.
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
At several of the organizations I've been involved with over the last couple of years, remote email (and calendar and discussion and ) has been via Outlook Web Access. Funny enough, usability tanks regarding attaching files, spell check, moving emails, preview panes, etc.
IMHO, it is not the internet at large that's the issue with browser shifts; it's the intranet.
Thinking of starting a business in Minnesota? Me too! mnsmall.biz
I had all customer service agents switched to Firefox in a weekend, all they use is the UPS website to check tracking numbers, so the rest of the stuff they do is usually not business related so they don't complain. Have a few java apps, they work well, one required me to install Java 1.5.0 (Err I mean Java 5!) instead of 1.4.2 because it was running dog slow in Firefox with 1.4.2 ....
Imported Favorites and settings...made IE hidden..
2 or 3 users are special cases and they really need IE for some IE specific ActiveX crap but that's it...
I spent 5minutes clearing spyware in the past 6 weeks.
Here it is.
I've used it many times. Switch the icon for Firefox to IE. Install Luna. Done.
Let's stop IE at the webserver. Someone needs to create mod_noie, which returns a page to download FireFox and/or Mozilla if it detects the user is using MSIE. Warn the user they have an insecure browser that's hurting the internet and they need to upgrade.
It worked for Microsoft to squelch DR-DOS, didn't it? Turnabout is fair play.
Total up your costs for coping with IE's problems for each of the past several years, extrapolate that for the next few years, and compare all this with the costs of migrating to Firefox (or the browser of your choice). Show them the graphs of total money spent from five years ago to five years from now, and make it clear how much money you would have (or will) save by making the change.
If you can't show the financial gain for the change, it doesn't make business sense. Period. Better = costs less overall. Period. "Less trouble for the tech guys" doesn't cut it. Neither does "but Firefox is more standards compliant!"
I always equivocate. Well, almost always.
PHBs don't think like that unfortunately. They think, "Microsoft is everywhere so it is the standard. Everything else is broken or not good enough." When one of their PHB friends talks about how cool moving over to Firefox was next time they are out playing golf instead of working, you'll get a memo telling you about this great new thing that he's found and insisting that you try it out and have it installed on his machine. Next thing you know, a committee will go away and do a cost/benefit analysis and within 12 to 18 months a document will be written recommending that it becomes corporate policy to only use Firefox. Three to four years later it will become policy, you'll get to install it, but it'll be a 2-year-old version full of bugs and security holes and lacking modern standards.
Stick Men