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IBM Backs Firefox In-House
An anonymous reader wrote in with the link to a CNet story describing IBM's adoption of the Firefox browser for internal use. From the article: "Firefox is already used by about 10 percent of IBM's staff, or about 30,000 people. Starting this past Friday, IBM workers could download the browser from internal servers and get support from the company's help desk staff. IBM's commitment to Firefox is among its most prominent votes of confidence from a large corporation."
It runs great on OS/2! I can format floppies and browse the web... AT THE SAME TIME!!!
my company has far too many "IE Only" applications. :(
...since IBM has tradition been a huge advocate of open source.
This may be the best possible reference case for the average IT guy trying to convince his/her boss that FireFox is a good solution for a corporate environment.
Having IBM as a good example to use when pushing for corporate adoption of Firefox is a great thing for people working in this area. Although, it must be said that IBM are less likely to have troublesome components (IE specific webpages, ActiveX components) within any intranet pages than other companies due to their own products in that area (I'm thinking Lotus..).
Business Voyeur
Right, and by changing browser they lessen the dependence, woohoo!
Meaning 20,000 more downloads not counting on the Official Firefox Download Counter.
João Pinheiro
You work at Microsoft.
What could be better than Big Blue backing up Firefox? And why not? OS is already a Thing for IBM. Just look at the IBM-sponsored Eclipse Foundation. Congrats Firefox!
In other news Microsoft countered by saying that after conducting an extensive poll of it's thousands of employees that "tabbed browsing" was not something that internet users wanted.
They also added that most Softies said that 1 "tab" would be enough for anyone.
I know the whole "officially supported" practice, but really, it's a damned web browser. Certainly the biggest software services company can find a few people that know how that works...
Once these employees are using FireFox at work, there is a good chance that they'll start to use it as home, as well (once they get used to it, and if they like it more than IE which usually seems to be the case). Then they can tell family and friends (I've personally only convinced a few people to switch, but those ten or so have told others, and it spreads).
Personally, I prefer Safari over FireFox (I don't need too many extensions, just a simple browsing experience) but when I'm on a windows machine I only use FireFox.
I work at a major investment bank and just yesterday they decided to send a memo around saying that Firefox is not to be used. I wonder why that was? No, really does anyone have any suggestions.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
No matter what one thinks of IBM and its products, they are creating the blueprints companies around the world are using to get themselves out from mess they've all put themselves into with costly Microsoft products.
The headline isn't IBM back Firebox, but IBM shows the commercial world the way out of the quagmire of Microsoft dependance.
After this past fall semester, the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska begin setting Firefox as the default browsers in all the teaching labs due to problems with IE. Previously, at the end of each semester, the techs responsible for these labs would spend a lot of time cleaning up the malware coming in via IE. Now that this semester is over, the word is that the switch proved successful in terms of not having much to clean up.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Where are today's articles about Google!? There's 4 articles about Firefox and nothing, NOTHING, about Google!!
my blog
With IBMs large scale support for OSS , and its moves to replace the windows desktops with linux not to mention its sale of the PC business , Its only natural that they would move people on to an open browser.
.Acceptance in the corperate market would mean a great deal of people will be using firefox at work , which would perhaps have the knock on effect of them using it at home .
.
What will be intresting to see is if this has a knock on effect to other large corperation as IBM is still very very influential.
This more than anything could be the break firefox needs toward wide scale acceptance beyond the 10%
When firefox has more than 30% of the market perhaps then we could relax in the knowlidge that most sites would then see fit to not specialise their code for IE
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Since I'm sure some bean counter had to approve the switching, it seems to me that some cost analysis had to be done, and they realized Firefox would have a lower "TCO".
I'm sure getting away from being dependent on a rival's product factored into the decision, but I'm pretty sure cost factored as well.
.. far too much. But they've been working at stamping out the M$ dependencies. This announcement is further proof that effort is progressing.
After we get rid of all the intranet apps that rely on ActiveX, we can resume the push for Linux on the desktop!
Avant!
Where did they get the .msi to be able to roll it out on that many Windows XP workstations?
Payback's a fox on fire ...
...
Oh, well, at least now he'll have the "freedom to innovate". About time
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oracle has Firefox in the base image for over six months. That means its comming on all newly installed and reinstalled machines. In addition to that anybody can install firefox through standard application installer as any other application. Mozilla has been there for almost two years now. You get support for all applications in the base image through the IT support staff.
Great job FireFox. I've had all of the employees in our office use FireFox. I'm sick of fixing spyware infested machines - Why they should be on spyware sites is beyond me, but it sure helps.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
I use Firefox on the eComStation operating system. Best browser on the best OS. www.ecomstation.com
We can only hope they'll begin pre-installing it on their Thinkpad products.
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
Will Firefox make it to the computer systems IBM ships as the default browser? That will even be better. Can IBM flex muscles here? I doubt. The surest way of denting IE's share is by governments ordering PCs specifying that the browser installed should meet all W3C standards that the browser supports 100%. I understand that in procurement, specifying a product name is not allowed, so mentioning Firefox as the browser is a non-starter.
Firefox now comes with the workstation build for all the L1 monitoring workstaions in ebiz ops. I used Firefox to monitor the NYSE website we host. I get my work done much faster than with IE ;)
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
that's a lot of new code when you add it all up.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
its been available on the official repository for a couple months now. The first version I noticed there was 1.01, though, while I was already using 1.02 at the time.
And IBM used to have a number of internal IE-only sites, FYI.
They've publicly announced they want to put Linux on every desktop. What browser do you think they're going to use? lynx?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Try to apply for a job with IBM using anything other than IE. It doesn't work. IBM + Firefox will be news when they support it externally.
I'm not sure if this feature is already implemented or is open on bugzilla, but something that would help out Firefox in the corporate setting would be a way to adjust the update downloads. Kind of like SUS Server for Windows which will pull updates for Windows and IE, somehow just download one copy of Firefox to the network, have the Firefox updater point to that location to check if an update is available.
It may save on bandwith going out from the company and coming in to the Mozilla mirrors. I'm not sure if its feasible, its just a thought.
I don't know if this means that IBM is going to be involved in the direction that Firefox feature development might take, but if they are hopefully it might formalize Firefox more perhaps addressing some of the concerns of Mozilla Suite users (meaning more Firefox users! Yay!).
Wasn't it about a year ago that IBM top honcho declared that all of IBM would switch to using linux? Now that would be a impressive feat if they pulled that off.
10% of IBM employees pales in comparison to that. But the PR spinmeisters hoped you would have forgotten that already, i guess.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
as one of those unfortunate corporate slaves, I have been used to being able to set group policies and using deployment tools for IE for use in the coporate environment (for forcing proxy settings as one of many possible examples), how do I do this with firefox?
first there's "Internet Explorer's Share Dips Below 90%", and now we learn that "Firefox is already used by about 10 percent of IBM's staff". So, it seems that IBM's employees are a lot like the rest of the internet.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
Simple workaround: use Mozilla!
Hopefully, this might lead to IBM helping with developing good tools for remote management of Firefox. It would be very helpful for all the people having big deployments. If Firefox is to be ubiquitous, this is needed.
that IBM will start selling desktop computers again but with only linux installed. and rebadge them cost they sold their own name :D
My company just sent me a memo demanding that everyone remove FireFox from their machines because its less secure than Internet Explorer. Perhaps people should tell them what they think about that.
IBM has had employees working with Mozilla and with Firefox for years (the OS/2 ports of those browsers were paid for by IBM for quite some time), and the so-called "IBM Web Browser" that is provided to OS/2 users by IBM is based on Mozilla.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Lotus Notes Web Access is ActiveX based so it's IE only...
As I also said below, it should -- IBM people did the OS/2 port of Netscape and then Mozilla for years, and IBMers are still heavily (if informally) involved with the OS/2 ports of Mozilla and Firefox.
:-)
If Firefox was a multithreaded browser it would be a little bit better, though, at least under Warp.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
It's good news that IBM followed suit, of course. But, I can only wonder what took them so long.
This slashdot-related signature is a stub. You can help kihjin by expanding it.
Just not very effectively, at least compared to some of the other applications that I run on my OS/2 box.
;-)
It's a far cry better than Netscape Navigator was, though. But anything doing disk access or any other activities which could interfere with the UI should be spawned as a background process, IMO.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
except you need IE to browse the admin pages of websphere....DOH!
Maybe they'll stop optimising their employment page for IE 6 then. Or maybe they think you're only supposed to start using Firefox AFTER you get hired on at the company...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Okay, I'm not trolling but I am perplexed: it seems IBM wants to use OSS software everywhere, good for them, but why don't they market PC with Linux preloaded with Linux?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I think the mess that IBM got into with MS is pretty much unique to IBM.
As for the rest of the world, I don't see much leadership coming from IBM.
Open source and closed source products are out there for the world to choose from. Why would anyone need to check with IBM to figure out what they want to do?
I use Firefox every day on my computer at work, which is on a US Air Force network. It is approved and I do my best to encourage the users I support to use it. Since I am IT Support, I sure as hell provide support to them.
Another poster mentioned TCO for using Firefox over IE and while I can't provide numbers, I know I rarely see a system with spyware/adware who's user primarily uses Firefox.
http://www.thestreet.com/_mstar/tech/billsnyder/10 223493.html?cm_ven=MSTAR&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA&pgi d=pfsnapshotbt
Not to mention that all the lab machines supported by Love Library and branch libraries have Firefox installed for patron convenience and safety.
FireFox effect in Corporate America
http://www.funnyfox.org/theoffice.htm
by not having spyware infested PCs.
"This is a real good example of walking the talk when it comes it comes to open standards and open source," Truskowski said.
1. Isn't that supposed to be "walking the walk"?
2. "when it comes it comes to open standards" (Maybe this article was written using voice recognition software and the author studdered?)
And of course, there was a happy ending. A few of the techs got laid off for lack of work.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Hopefully they will have an equally big commitment to keeping it constantly patched!
Some day real IBM thinkpads will be collectors items, since Lenovo is outsourcing them to Acer.
Just wanted to say, ditto for University of Washington. The computers' default browser is set to Firefox, but Firefox, Mozilla, and IE are all available. This has been so for the past 3 months or so.
If most/a lot of people are using Firefox instead of IE, they aren't going to let future applications be IE-only. Switching away from MS/IE is never an easy job, but switching to firefox is an easier step than switching to linux.
If you have 30,000 people using a single browser, it would make sense to set up a method of downloading the product and a help desk system internally. I know it would take a while to add up, but this move can potentially save a bundle on bandwidth. I imagine they have a similar system already in place for Internet Explorer.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
Yoda, you are not.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'll be REALLY impressed when MICROSOFT has their employees switch to using Firefox.
/.ers might not agree with Microsoft, you have to admit they are computer geeks too, even if they do work on "The Dark Side".
Yes I am kidding, but really I'm sure some if not a good chunks of they have it installed. I mean, most tech savvy people do, and even though most
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
You can't be sued for using open-source software (except for patent issues, and that applies to closed-source software too). The GPL only kicks in as and when you try to give or sell the software to someone else.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Check out this article on abeNd.org for a method of deploying, managing and locking down the Firefox browser in corporate environments:
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http://www.abend.org/article.php?story=2005042016
This article describes some performance enhancements for the browser:
http://www.abend.org/article.php?story=2005050211
And this one just has some general news about the new release, the market share, the Frefox/KDE thing, etc.:
http://www.abend.org/article.php?story=2005051213
Oh and btw, IBM is converting 300,000 users to Firefox:
http://www.abend.org/article.php?story=2005051317
This news about IBM comes only 2 days after #3 ISP EarthLink banned all its employees from using Firefox (or any other non-IE browsers) citing security concerns.
Hey, at least their internet software also comes with 'Spyware Blocker' to help clean things up when IE/ActiveX lets websites install things.
I refuse to use such a thing. Instead I make daily visits to those sites with my real browser string set. When I switch my browser string nobody knows that something other than IE is in use. So they will never fix this bug, and they will feel no motivation to support standards.
What about deploying secuity updates for fire fox? Even though all the secuity patches for IE combined outweigh the Firefox installer, it would be nice if their was a SUS/WUS type server/utility that could deploy it automatically. Sure, you can use AD or something to deploy it (or for all you quasi-OU admins out their - psexec) but it be nice to not worry so much about security so we can spend more time doing really important stuff, like pandering to wimpering users destraught at their inability to format a word document for printing. (God I hate my job)
"Firefox is already used by about 10 percent of IBM's staff" make me wonder what browser the rest of IBM's staff use to surf ? Internet Explorer, Netscape or ?
i hope the other 90% isn't IE. shame on you, since all over the world, IE is now below 90%... :)
I don't feel like it...
The title is a little jarring when I read it. I think thisis why.
Firefox will really start to hit the enteprise when you can manage it through Group Policies and deploying it though AD.
Thats what's holding me back on pushing it out to our Windows desktops
> IBM workers could download the browser from internal servers and get support from the company's help desk staff.
what is more significant is that post SCO, IBM doesn't just let its staffers download, run and use OSS. Hardly a big endorsement.
they are "PC-free freaks" so they use what is available on their system... wich obviously can't be MSIE...
Once I've got a Firefox called Frosty... but how did you know that ?? ...and where did you get his piss ??
They've fixed Global Print to work with Firefox - check it out.
http://news.com.com/You+Are+Jizzmopper+If+You+Stil l+Use+IE/2100-7344_3-5704750.html
Any idea which ones? Is it a local decision/policy at each base, or what? I'd be using Firefox at work, if only I had admin priviledges on the box in our office. (Scott AFB)
And by the way, is there any kind of policy against spyware? Every machine I come across has some sort of crapware installed on it, such as GAIN, blahblah-toolbar, etc. Can't get rid of it, either, since I'm a limited user...
I guess the poster ment that Firefox has only one GUI thread (of coarse there are seperate threads for each TCP socket). The problem with only one GUI thread is that when one tab is busy rendering a complicated page all the other tabs are blocked until it is finished.