The Mozilla Foundation claims that Firefox has been adopted by large enterprises, but companies are often choosing to keep it quiet to maintain a good relationship with Microsoft.
Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe, speaking at the Free and Open source Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) in Brussels on Sunday, said that he knows "a few companies" that have deployed the Firefox browser or Thunderbird mail client across 100,000 seats.
Gervase Markham, a Mozilla staff member who was also speaking at FOSDEM, added that there is a Fortune 100 company in the US that has deployed Thunderbird on 50,000 PCs and is paying the Mozilla Foundation to customise the email application.
Companies are often reluctant to publicise that they have migrated from Microsoft Internet Explorer or Outlook to the open source browser or email application, as they are concerned that this may damage their relationship with Microsoft, according to Nitot.
"I know companies that are deploying Firefox or Thunderbird, but they aren't talking about it as they don't want to see an increase in their [Microsoft] Office licence price," said Nitot.
In the past, senior Microsoft executives have tried to prevent high-profile migrations to desktop open source applications. In 2003 Steve Ballmer met the mayor of Munich to dissuade him from replacing Microsoft Windows and Office with Linux and OpenOffice.org, the open source operating system and productivity application. Despite Microsoft's reported intervention, Munich decided to go ahead with the migration.
Nitot said companies are keen to avoid drawing attention to themselves when migrating to open source applications on the desktop. "Guys are really shy -- it's the Munich Linux thing," said Nitot. "They start talking about it and suddenly Ballmer comes in and twists your arm until you cry."
Although Nitot was unwilling to reveal the names of any companies that have deployed Firefox, he said the French government is seriously considering deploying the application.
"We have very good contacts at the top level with government administrations," said Nitot. "Two or three weeks ago I was invited to speak at a panel. I was the only vendor, all the others were ministers -- of finance, customs and so on. It was really weird to be only vendor. They are all considering Firefox to be their main browser and we're working hard to make this happen, but I can't talk much about this today."
One of the French Ministries is already preparing to make the move to the open source browser, according to Nitot. "The Interior Ministry in France said they were working on making sure all Intranet applications work on Firefox -- they plan to offer a choice [of Firefox and IE] for users."
The French Government has already shown a keen interest in open source. The French Ministry of Defence is spending €7m (£4.8m) to build its own secure version of Linux, while the French Ministry of Equipment has decided to migrate 1,500 Windows NT servers to Linux.
It is essential that Firefox makes inroads in the enterprise before Microsoft launches the next version of IE, according to Nitot. "This year we want to target the enterprise and governments market," he said, echoing statements he made at the Linux Solutions 2005 conference. "IE 7 is coming and we've got to be ready -- we've got to be deeply entrenched in [the administration's of] larger towns. These people move slowly so [if they move to Firefox] they won't revert back to IE7. Today we need to make some progress."
At present Firefox has had more success in the consumer market, than the enterprise market, according to Nitot. "If you look at the graphs, Firefox usage is higher at weekends than during the week," he said. "People tend to install it at home, while in the office they still have to use IE."
To encourage businesses to use Firefox, Mozilla is due to release Firefox 1.1 as an MSI install. Other important issues for companies are the availability of commercial support and the ability to lock down the application to restrict what employees can do.
Nitot said formal support is important, but this is not something that the Mozilla Foundation will use as a source of income.
"Commercial support is definitely something we're looking into, but we won't do it ourself," said Nitot. "Many enterprises have not yet adopted open source culture. Although technical support [for open source products] is available from user groups and mailing lists, companies want a phone number. There is money to be made there."
Firefox already offers preference locking -- the ability to lock down functionality, but Mozilla needs to make this feature easier to use. "Companies really often ask about the preference locking thing," said Markham. "It does exist, but in terms of documentation and tools it's terrible. As the feature is already there, it shouldn't be that hard to do this."
Talkback
I believe the Open Source Railroad is gonna roll right over Redmond. But not right away. If you look at the numbers from MSFT's last quarter, they are still selling a LOT of Windows, even on the server side, surprisingly. On the server side, I think a lot of it is "Outllook Addiction". Users may hate it, but IT guys seem to really love it.
IT managers need to learn up on Firefox. For over a year now I have been requesting that I be allowed to install the Firefox web browser (or Mozilla) on my computer at work partly because I find it more productive (the quicker page load times and tabbed browsing) but mainly due to the various alarming security flaws in Internet Explorer.
As the computer (a laptop which I can take home and on the road) also contains personal information I was real scared of a malicous hacker or program stealing my details.
Eventually after alerting them to the fact that I could sue them for quite a lot of money if their refusal to let me not use Internet Explorer led to me having personal details stolen, they agreed that I could install Firefox.
I just wonder how many other employees of big corporations (with their strict IT policies) suffer from a company policy of defaulting to Internet Explorer.
IE7. Who cares. What will it have that doesn't already exist in firefox. They going to finally have Pop Up Blocker? Tabbed Browsing? Skins? Security? Performance? Extentions? Near as I can see, it is simply trying to add security springboarding off SP2, and we all know what a complete security triumph SP2 was, zero installation problems for anyone, and of course, in the customer's best interests, they must upgrade to XP?
Kevin
I really welcome Firefoxes movement onto corporate Windows desktops.
Firefox is the thin edge of the wedge showing corporate IT deparments that open source isn't about using Linux, it's about have a choice.
Firefox is corporations that they can have a great browser and not be limited to a choice of desktops. It's showing corporations that for all Microsoft's talk about security and the dangers of open source, the reality is that open source produces good software faster. It's showing corporations that instead of having to choose the desktops based on a web-browser, they can choose their desktops based on need.
With the addition of Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org, these companies are starting to realize that Windows isn't the only choice they have, and that they can actually choose to use one bit of software without having to choose a platfrom at the same time. And that file formats don't have to limit your softare choices, but instead can enable your business to do more.
It won't be long before these same companies start to ask why every software user needs to use expensive Windows software instead of cheaper, but still great quality, Linux software.
Thank you firefox for freeing our minds.
I LOVE Firefox! It's SO much faster than IE, and from what I've read, keeps the bugs out that IE is so prone to. Love all the extra options. This thing rocks!! I've been telling everyone to ditch IE......watch out, Microsoft! Firefox is becoming THE browser to have! Forbes and CNET recommend Firefox vs IE. And that says it all!