MozillaZine

'InformationWeek' Reports on IE7 v Mozilla Firefox 2 for Business

Wednesday October 18th, 2006

The latest issue of InformationWeek has a cover story about how businesses should respond to this month's releases of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2. The article includes an overview of the new features in the two browser versions and some commentary about the implications for enterprises. Much of the text is taken up by quotations from representatives of Microsoft, the Mozilla Corporation and IT decision-makers.

The article notes that Firefox currently lags in the business space but it does report recent progress: the number of companies with more than 200 employees allowing Firefox on their desktops has grown from 26% in 2005 to 44% this year, according to JupiterResearch.

The story also looks ahead to future versions of the two browsers. A May release date is cited for Firefox 3 and the report repeats Microsoft's claim that IE will receive an update within eighteen months.

The article is accompanied by a screenshot-laden overview of eight major features in IE7 and Firefox 2. It would be impolite to point out that the screenshot highlighting Firefox's Search bar actually calls out the Location bar, so we won't.

On Tuesday, the day after the cover story hit the Web, InformationWeek published excerpts from Blake Ross's responses to an email interview for the article (very few direct quotations from Blake made it into the final piece). The commentary notes that "Ross doesn't shy away from speaking his mind and always has something insightful to say." Thanks to roseman for the link.

Earlier this week, Blake posted a longer version of his email correspondence with InformationWeek on his BlakeRoss.com weblog, though he has since removed this post. When he originally published the email exchange, Blake said it was because the cover story "misrepresents [his] position". The comments that Blake emailed to InformationWeek but which the magazine did not choose to publish on its website mostly revolve around Blake's criticism of the article's focus on the battle between Microsoft and Mozilla, which Blake sees as relatively unimportant due to the Mozilla Foundation's non-profit status and lack of pressure to meet commercial goals.

Update: Blake's removed weblog post has now been restored and can be accessed at http://www.blakeross.com/browser-wars/.

#1 Post

by Blake

Wednesday October 18th, 2006 9:14 PM

FWIW, I delisted the post from my blog because (as you say) InformationWeek published a separate story including more context, which was a fair resolution. The post is still online, however.

#2 ACTIVE, ALive, die

by BijuGC

Thursday October 19th, 2006 12:52 AM

Article also says "... critically important "Live" initiative ... window to Live services ...." Yesterday window was very ACTIVE with things like ActiveX, ASP Today window is just ALive with http://live.com/ Tomorrow it is going to die..

#3 Mozilla CORPORATION

by whiterabbit

Thursday October 19th, 2006 10:48 PM

>>Blake's criticism of the article's focus on the battle between Microsoft and Mozilla, which Blake sees as relatively unimportant due to the Mozilla Foundation's non-profit status and lack of pressure to meet commercial goals.

Blake, Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit but Firefox is produced by Mozilla Corporation. (Maybe that is why he deleted his post.)

#4 Re: Mozilla CORPORATION

by Blake

Friday October 20th, 2006 7:49 AM

The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, so Firefox is ultimately produced by the Mozilla Foundation, and everything I said stands.

As I already said, I delisted the post because InformationWeek posted a lengthier version of my comments that covers the clarifications I wanted to make. The post has not been deleted.

#6 Re: Re: Mozilla CORPORATION

by AlexBishop

Friday October 20th, 2006 7:42 PM

"The post has not been deleted."

Where is it then? It used to be at http://www.blakeross.com/2006/10/16/browser-wars/, right? But it's not there any more.

Alex

#7 Re: Re: Re: Mozilla CORPORATION

by Blake

Friday October 20th, 2006 7:59 PM

It's not? I just clicked on your link and it loads for me. I haven't touched a thing...

#8 Re: Re: Re: Re: Mozilla CORPORATION

by Blake

Friday October 20th, 2006 8:11 PM

Hmm okay, sorry about that. The post does appear for me, but not for others--I guess because I'm logged into my Wordpress account, and the post is marked as a draft.

Since I can't see a way to keep the post at that address without having it appear in my blog, I've duplicated it to http://www.blakeross.com/browser-wars/ for now.

#5 Print scaling

by ivanii

Friday October 20th, 2006 4:01 PM

Article states that IE scales page when printing and Firefox does not. Firefox scales to page width which is the only necessary option in normal conditions, so it is absolutely competetive.