Comments on: Firefox in the Enterprise: Part 1 – Obstacles http://mike.kaply.com/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/ Mozilla, money, microformats and more Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:32:05 -0600 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Joe http://mike.kaply.com/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-473 Joe Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:54:38 +0000 http://www.kaply.com/weblog/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-473 <a> </a>

]]> By: Rafael http://mike.kaply.com/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-472 Rafael Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:40:28 +0000 http://www.kaply.com/weblog/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-472 Bottom line. Mozilla.com is a consumer focused company and they do not want to be dragged down by enterprise -- enterprise rfe's, lifecycles, support, etc. If that weren't the case, there would be a group of people at Mozilla.com today supporting Firefox 1.0.x through 2011 or 2014 and that's just not a good use of the limited resources at MozCorp. Now, is there an opportunity for a company to step up and make money by supporting Firefox in the Enterprise. Absolutely. Is it a start-up? Probably not. An established mid-sized consulting company? Sure. Is Mozilla helping to make Firefox in the Enterprise a reality? Not really. It's more of a "sure we support Firefox in the Enterprise and we're happy to see it happen" but we really aren't doing anything to support it but not doing anything really to prevent it from happening either. Fact of the matter is, who at MozCorp is on the hook to see that Firefox in the Enterprise is a reality? What are the programs in place or need to be in place, who's supporting you, etc. Bottom line. Mozilla.com is a consumer focused company and they do not want to be dragged down by enterprise — enterprise rfe’s, lifecycles, support, etc. If that weren’t the case, there would be a group of people at Mozilla.com today supporting Firefox 1.0.x through 2011 or 2014 and that’s just not a good use of the limited resources at MozCorp.

Now, is there an opportunity for a company to step up and make money by supporting Firefox in the Enterprise. Absolutely. Is it a start-up? Probably not. An established mid-sized consulting company? Sure.

Is Mozilla helping to make Firefox in the Enterprise a reality? Not really. It’s more of a “sure we support Firefox in the Enterprise and we’re happy to see it happen” but we really aren’t doing anything to support it but not doing anything really to prevent it from happening either.

Fact of the matter is, who at MozCorp is on the hook to see that Firefox in the Enterprise is a reality? What are the programs in place or need to be in place, who’s supporting you, etc.

]]> By: James http://mike.kaply.com/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-471 James Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:24:45 +0000 http://www.kaply.com/weblog/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-471 The various Linux distros have to support Firefox 1.5 for a long time, so I think there was some talk of giving them access to that branch for security fixes etc. Probably worth talking to Mike Connor about that. The various Linux distros have to support Firefox 1.5 for a long time, so I think there was some talk of giving them access to that branch for security fixes etc. Probably worth talking to Mike Connor about that.

]]> By: beltzner http://mike.kaply.com/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-470 beltzner Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:54:45 +0000 http://www.kaply.com/weblog/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-470 Great post, Mike. It's good to get these issues documented, and I'd actually love to see this (series, I guess?) eventually move to wiki.mozilla.org to serve as a canonical reference of what needs to be done if someone wants to make a drive towards supporting Mozilla/Firefox in the enterprise. It might also be a good idea to get some input from Scott MacGregor and David Bienvenu, here, as they've been more successful with getting Thunderbird in enterprise deployments. I agree with all the things you've pointed out, but have a couple of additions and suggestions, mostly around "things I think we're doing well but not thinking about when talking about supporting enterprises": * in the Lifecycle section, you conclude that Firefox must increase it's lifecycle to "one year", but I think you meant "verison n should be supported for at least one year after version n+1 is available." * in Service and Support, I think that the ability to file a bug and push for a fix there is actually important, and a vast improvement over what a lot of other vendors have to offer, since the enterprise customer at least gets straight visibility into what the status of the issue is. I think maintaining that visibility is important. Making it easier to file those bugs, and allocating resource to deal with them or fold them into product plans is a separate, yet obviously related issue. * in Business Value, I think there's some good arguments (better made recently by Shaver and others) about how Mozilla offers additional value by ensuring that vendors aren't locked into some proprietary technology stack which may one day become deprecated or unsupportable by others (IBM's been making this argument for several years now in terms of their support for Linux and Java). * in Third Party and Intranet Applications, I don't think that the customizability of Firefox should be overlooked. You mention some of this with the CCK, but there's rich opportunity for deep customization here, and we could be doing more to create connections between companies that want those customizations and people who can do it for them; this could be a great way to build extra value around the add-ons space and allow developers who invest in understanding that technology to get paid for that expertise! Great post, Mike. It’s good to get these issues documented, and I’d actually love to see this (series, I guess?) eventually move to wiki.mozilla.org to serve as a canonical reference of what needs to be done if someone wants to make a drive towards supporting Mozilla/Firefox in the enterprise. It might also be a good idea to get some input from Scott MacGregor and David Bienvenu, here, as they’ve been more successful with getting Thunderbird in enterprise deployments.

I agree with all the things you’ve pointed out, but have a couple of additions and suggestions, mostly around “things I think we’re doing well but not thinking about when talking about supporting enterprises”:

* in the Lifecycle section, you conclude that Firefox must increase it’s lifecycle to “one year”, but I think you meant “verison n should be supported for at least one year after version n+1 is available.”

* in Service and Support, I think that the ability to file a bug and push for a fix there is actually important, and a vast improvement over what a lot of other vendors have to offer, since the enterprise customer at least gets straight visibility into what the status of the issue is. I think maintaining that visibility is important. Making it easier to file those bugs, and allocating resource to deal with them or fold them into product plans is a separate, yet obviously related issue.

* in Business Value, I think there’s some good arguments (better made recently by Shaver and others) about how Mozilla offers additional value by ensuring that vendors aren’t locked into some proprietary technology stack which may one day become deprecated or unsupportable by others (IBM’s been making this argument for several years now in terms of their support for Linux and Java).

* in Third Party and Intranet Applications, I don’t think that the customizability of Firefox should be overlooked. You mention some of this with the CCK, but there’s rich opportunity for deep customization here, and we could be doing more to create connections between companies that want those customizations and people who can do it for them; this could be a great way to build extra value around the add-ons space and allow developers who invest in understanding that technology to get paid for that expertise!

]]> By: mawrya http://mike.kaply.com/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-469 mawrya Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:44:58 +0000 http://www.kaply.com/weblog/2007/06/13/firefox-in-the-enterprise-part-1-obstacles/#comment-469 Good post. I would vote for business value as the no. 1 obstacle. What do I get for installing Firefox across my network? Not much. Businesses don't care that you can install lots of nifty extensions to upload files to flickr and organize your bookmarks in innovative ways. You need killer business apps based on open standards that Firefox supports but IE doesn't. Then businesses will be moving to Firefox because of the apps that add value (efficiency) to their business. To get developers building those killer apps you need to support standards that make business-centric web app development easy. Business apps on the client side typically need good charting/graphing, powerful forms, and a solid UI platform. Firefox has SVG which goes a long way to answer the charting/graphing requirement, XUL is a good UI platform, and XForms would be the answer to the forms requirement. Support the open standards that support BUSINESS apps and you will have no problem getting into enterprises like mine. Just this week Mozilla cut off build support for the XForms effort, which I understand IBM is funding. Why is IBM so interested in XForms but mozilla doesn't think its very important? I get the feeling that Mozilla is mostly interested in the "home user" and the apps that they will use: gmail, google earth, social networking sites, etc. Maybe this is because business apps are below the radar, they are running on intranets inside businesses. You will never see them on the general web, but Mozilla must acknowledge them if they want into the enterprise. -mawrya Good post. I would vote for business value as the no. 1 obstacle. What do I get for installing Firefox across my network? Not much. Businesses don’t care that you can install lots of nifty extensions to upload files to flickr and organize your bookmarks in innovative ways. You need killer business apps based on open standards that Firefox supports but IE doesn’t. Then businesses will be moving to Firefox because of the apps that add value (efficiency) to their business. To get developers building those killer apps you need to support standards that make business-centric web app development easy.

Business apps on the client side typically need good charting/graphing, powerful forms, and a solid UI platform. Firefox has SVG which goes a long way to answer the charting/graphing requirement, XUL is a good UI platform, and XForms would be the answer to the forms requirement. Support the open standards that support BUSINESS apps and you will have no problem getting into enterprises like mine.

Just this week Mozilla cut off build support for the XForms effort, which I understand IBM is funding. Why is IBM so interested in XForms but mozilla doesn’t think its very important? I get the feeling that Mozilla is mostly interested in the “home user” and the apps that they will use: gmail, google earth, social networking sites, etc. Maybe this is because business apps are below the radar, they are running on intranets inside businesses. You will never see them on the general web, but Mozilla must acknowledge them if they want into the enterprise.

-mawrya

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