IBM’s Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and Linux, announced this morning that Big Blue is “moving to Firefox as its default browser” because the open-source browser is “stunningly standards compliant”, “not beholden to one commercial entity” and “extensible” among other reasons.
The decision puts IBM’s nearly 400,000 employees solidly in Mozilla’s court, adding yet another vote of confidence for the worlds number two browser.
According to Web analytics site StatCounter, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still leads the pack worldwide, with 55%, while Firefox follows with just under 30% and Google’s Chrome rounds out the top three with 8%. While 400,000 users doesn’t mean a big percentage jump in the worldwide browser market, it is a backing by one of the world’s leading hardware and software developers.
Sutor reasoned that the switchover to Firefox was supported by five basic facts:
Firefox is stunningly standards compliant, and interoperability via open standards is key to IBM’s strategy.
Firefox is open source and its development schedule is managed by a development community not beholden to one commercial entity.
Firefox is secure and an international community of experts continues to develop and maintain it.
Firefox is extensible and can be customized for particular applications and organizations, like IBM.
Firefox is innovative and has forced the hand of browsers that came before and after it to add and improve speed and function.
Beyond IBM’s workforce, the 99-year-old tech company will “strongly encourage our vendors who have browser-based software to fully support Firefox” as well as install it as default on all new computers. Sutor also cites the shift to cloud computing as a large reason for IBM’s move to Firefox, saying that “open standards must be used in the infrastructure” and that Firefox will help with this.
