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Mozilla To Launch "Build Your Own Browser"
angry tapir sends in a piece from Down Under which begins "Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customized browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks. ... Through the Build Your Own Browser program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser, such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals. ... The bulk of enterprises still use Internet Explorer if they mandate a browser for company use, because Microsoft provides provisioning and installation software for IE that makes it easy for enterprises to control browser settings and install across all corporate desktops, said Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish. Mozilla has not historically done this, but something like the Build Your Own Browser program is a good start to encourage enterprises to use Firefox over IE."
I dunno, I work for a Fortune 100 company and we use IE because all the crappy "enterprise" software we run requires stupid ActiveX or JavaScript or whatever that only runs on IE6. Good luck to FireFox, but customizations ain't got nothing to do with it where I work.
Enterprises support IE because it runs ActiveX controls. Until FF does this, it will not appear in desktop builds for the majority of Corporate America.
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
I wonder if this will spawn a trend where every single distro ships with thier own branded firefox version. Meaning that in distro reviews, we'll have the mandatory screenshot of the login screen art, the defualt desktop background, and the firefox branding. Great.
I would welcome this for Arch, though, we have to rebuild firefox from source or we're stuck with the ugly "built from source code" icons.
So instead of offering one browser that can be configured by Group Policy in an Enterprise IT deployment they offer a web service to generate hard-coded branded browser installers? Sounds like a lot of work to avoid implementing what IT managers really want.
The problem isn't that companies can't deploy Firefox - it's that most vendors are IE-centric. It's easy to put together a default Firefox profile with the requisite bookmarks and customizations, but tougher to get the same "experience" when it comes to things like Sharepoint and SAP, among others. Once you can get some of those vendors (ok, maybe not MS) to play more nicely, the rest will take care of itself.
I'm not saying it's all Mozilla's fault - in fact most of it isn't. But some corporate evangelism would go a long way towards getting traction within the enterprise.
Firefox has earned a lot of goodwill among the general population, but it's probably nearing a plateau in terms of brand recognition and new users. MS is starting to close the gap in features and security perception, so now is the time for FF to make some inroads in the enterprise software market. Users migrated to FF because they were dissatisfied with IE. If Modzilla solves shortcomings in IE for businesses and organizations they'll make some traction. If everyone's generally happy with IE, I don't see any new features that will compel them to invest in the change.
I do see a lot of companies using login scripts to control IE settings, and Active Directory's group policies tend to be an all-or-none (no plug-ins or all plug-ins, can't change homepage or can change it to anything, etc.) so there may be a few things Mozilla can improve on.
And more appealing for other people. Corporate management can be weird.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
IE won over Netscape 4 because IE was the default option and Microsoft abused their desktop monopoly to bundle IE and Microsoft prevented OEMs from offering a different default browser.
Remember that there's a bit of hindsight affecting peoples take on it too... at the time was the battle of CSS versus Javascript Style Sheets at the W3C and CSS won, so it's only natural that Netscape 4 looks worse upon hindsight. At the time Netscape 4 and IE were about the same (read: full of bugs). IE4 didn't understand floats at all well and while it supported position:absolute it didn't understand right/bottom coordinates(!), whereas Netscape 4 had a (seemingly) different rendering engine once you made JavaScript changes to the page and setting things back to the same values would often result in different positioning.
Weird shit, but please don't act like market forces, default browsers, and OEM constraints weren't the major factor in IE winning for a few years.
Currently I'd say that while IE has the majority they aren't winning in that no one has to develop just for them to the detriment of other browesrs.
What is the bottom line gain YOU CAN DEMONSTRATE to the company? zero, and don't start talking about security, the you can demonstrate bit is the most important bit.
You may be able to demonstrate a security flaw, depending on what it is and your skill level...if push comes to shove, round up some virus samples and put together a "crash dummy" PC/VM for demonstration purposes...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If I am selling widgets for $40 and my competition is giving away feature comparable widgets for free who are customers going to go to for their widgets?
Not you, obviously. Much like when I want a drink of water I grab it from the drinking fountain, not the guy hawking water bottles at a few bucks a pop.
That is why Microsoft was convicted of abusing its monopoly power.
Microsoft weren't the only company giving away widgets.
Netscape, by trying to charge for a web browser, were very much out of the ordinary. They gambled that they'd be able to tie their web browser to their web server in a compelling package and therefore be able to charge big $$$ for both. They lost.