on using Firefox at work
We’ve had some good press in the last month or two, notably IBM’s announcement of Firefox as its default browser, and a Forrester Research report stating that Firefox has a 20% share in the companies they surveyed. I think it’s important that we have a good story for getting Firefox into the hands of people in the work environment, but the story needs to be put together. This is where you come in.
At the Mozilla Summit a week and a half ago, I gave a 30-minute talk on some of the challenges the IT groups that support us face with deploying Firefox. It’s not a new discussion by any means, but it’s something I’d like to raise awareness on within the community and actively contribute to addressing. I wanted to get people thinking about all the bits outside the product at a high level, and called out what I think are the important parts along with what we’ll need to do. It’s not exhaustive, but I think it got the point across, and there were some great follow-on conversations that are on-going.
Our mission is to promote openness, innovation, and opportunity on the web. Making it easier for organizations to use our products in their workplace is a great opportunity to take that message to them. There’s a lot of people who use us at home, but who’d also love to use us at work. I want to help make that happen and, thankfully, I’m not alone.
The end game is to improve support for groups that are looking to get Firefox into the hands of their organization’s users, and to get the working group that addresses these problems spun back up to share how they do it with everyone else. There’s interest from organizations that want to use Firefox in their workplace, and a need for information on how to do it repeatably. The latter part is the tricksy bit, and I’m hoping to work on this with some like-minded individuals in the short and long term.
A few people have asked for the slides, so I figured I’d post them here. My presentation slides can be viewed using Google Docs, and if you want them in an editable format all you have to do is ask. I’d love to hear what you think, and would also love for you to get involved. If you’re interested in participating, add your name to the Working Group’s Participants section; I hope to reboot the group at the end of the summer, and will be in touch.
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