
IBM Makes Firefox its Default Browser - ckcin
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ibm_makes_firefox_its_default_browser.php
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alttab
I was an employee of IBM up until about 6 months ago, where upon I switched to
a start up. But that is not what this is about.

Hopefully, things at IBM have changed internally because a vast majority of
their internal applications require Internet Explorer to function _at all_.
Pretty much everyone I knew used Firefox, but groaned loudly when they had to
open IE6 to use some of their internal tools on W3.

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stcredzero
This is a good strategic move against Microsoft. If IBM lends its credibility
to the Firefox cause, other companies will be more willing to get rid of IE,
especially IE6.

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MikeCapone
Does anyone know if IBM contributes code to either Firefox/Gecko or Webkit?

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tiffani
The IBM/Firefox tie-up started a long time ago with them contributing some
accessibility features. <http://www-03.ibm.com/able/resources/firefox.html>

Glad they made it official, though, but Firefox had been an IBMer favorite for
a while: <http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/05/4902.ars>

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w1ntermute
This is excellent. If Google decides to stop sponsoring Mozilla, IBM now has
an incentive to do so in their place.

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ZeroGravitas
Google pays for search placement, as do at least a couple of other search
providers I believe. They used to pay people one dollar for getting Firefox
plus Google Search installed on a machine so they clearly view it as a money
maker rather than a charity.

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alanh
How corporate to switch official browsers away from IE… to a browser that is
no longer the leading engine anymore. I wonder why they did not pick a WebKit
flavor, like Chrome?

 _Edit:_ Mozilla Corp. is a commercial entity, just like Google and Apple are.
Gecko and WebKit are both open source, and Chromium builds show just how easy
it would be to build an IBM-branded Chrome, if you will. I don’t see IP as a
serious factor here.

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wmf
Chrome probably didn't even exist yet when IBM started migrating to Firefox.

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alanh
Can anyone enlighten me as to what sort of browser-specific investments have
been made? Isn’t the idea of a standards-based web that it _hardly matters_
which browser is chosen, as long as it supports the standards in question?

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wmf
Probably testing.

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jpd
As someone who is currently an IBM employee, this is news to me.

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c1sc0
How very corporate ;-)

