Internet Explorer - You're Fired!
Bill Gates needs to take a lesson from Donald Trump. If Trump were in charge of the Microsoft Internet Explorer Development Team, he'd call them into the "board room" and deliver his famous quote, "You're Fired!"
Internet Explorer (IE) is an old tired bag of software, seemingly abandoned, with no hopes of revival. Back in the early days of the Internet (think 1995), IE was the up-and-coming super star of the available browsers. Netscape was the king and Microsoft had only one goal (their corporate motto of the time); to crush Netscape!
Microsoft threw developers, money for R&D and marketing behind their baby: IE 3.0. With the release of version 3.0 of IE, Microsoft started to take the 'net by storm. Every new PC came with it pre-installed, and every Internet Service Provider bundled it with their "starter kits". Along the path to IE version 6.0, Microsoft dominated the browser market, ticked off a few other companies (and entire nations) with their monopolistic tactics. Netscape attempted to play catch-up to Microsoft but ultimately failed in the end, or did they?
Enter the new king: Firefox! The root of Firefox is molded from the leftovers of the last great king, King Netscape. After King Netscape's falling in the late 90's, AOL bought the shriveling company but ultimately decided to let it go on its own thusly creating the non-profit company: Mozilla Foundation. In the darkness of Mozilla, a few developers grouped together and got back to basics. They salvaged the few remaining bits and bytes of the great King and went about creating a simple, fast graceful browser.
Before I extol the wonders of Firefox, one must answer what is so terrible about IE. Since version 6.0 of IE that debuted in 2000, development has essentially stopped. No new features or versions have been released in over 4+ years! In those past 4 years, IE has become essentially a third world bus station; the gathering point for hackers, crackers, spyware, viruses and worms. One would think a company that controlled over 90% of the browser market share would take better care of its users. But, up until recently, they didn't have to. Users had no other choice but to fight the attacks and plug the gaping holes Microsoft left open the best they could. Finally Microsoft must fight a tough battle against a very opposing enemy: Choice!
So what does the choice have in its corner to back it up against the behemoth of Microsoft? Firefox the browser is an impressive piece of software. It's free, easy to use, easy on the eyes, and safer than IE. But, Firefox's strength runs deeper than its feature-set. Firefox the phenomenon is something much bigger. It's a combination of innovations in engineering, developer politics, and consumer marketing. Firefox has the ability to gather support and harness the power of the users far more impressively than IE and it is that word of mouth advertising that has created such a spark in the browser war front.
Blog users (see last article) have created a massive get-out-the-vote effort to express the wonders of Firefox. There are communities created solely to support a Firefox campaign (SpreadFirefox.com). The community site hosts Firefox blogs and gives pointers to a volunteer army of operatives for converting the masses. SpreadFirefox.com functions as a center for marketing and developing strategies, a coordination point for coders, ad designers, and evangelists. I received an email from a member of SpreadFirefox.com quoting a blog post I wrote about the wonders of Firefox and asked if I'd put a banner and link to Firefox's website. With the voices of the bloggers rounded up, their campaign was well on the way to succeeding.
It was important for Firefox to market itself as something other than software for geeks made by geeks if it wishes to gain market share held by typical surfers. SpreadFirefox.com rounded up the ever growing users and asked them for a donation of $25 so they could put a full page ad in the New York Times. Not only did they get enough donations for the ad, but 10,000 users donated $25 or more giving them enough for a full 2 page spread on December 16th. The message in the ad was clear: There is an alternative. The ad then proceeded to list the names of all 10,000+ people that donated money. Since the ad ran and the release of Firefox version 1.0, more than 22 million people have downloaded Firefox and the number is growing rapidly.
22 million people took the choice given to them by the new king Firefox, why are you waiting. Firefox is new, fresh and clean. If you are tired of Spyware, killing popups and lack of innovation, open your IE browser one last time and head to www.getfirefox.com.
Internet Explorer (IE) is an old tired bag of software, seemingly abandoned, with no hopes of revival. Back in the early days of the Internet (think 1995), IE was the up-and-coming super star of the available browsers. Netscape was the king and Microsoft had only one goal (their corporate motto of the time); to crush Netscape!
Microsoft threw developers, money for R&D and marketing behind their baby: IE 3.0. With the release of version 3.0 of IE, Microsoft started to take the 'net by storm. Every new PC came with it pre-installed, and every Internet Service Provider bundled it with their "starter kits". Along the path to IE version 6.0, Microsoft dominated the browser market, ticked off a few other companies (and entire nations) with their monopolistic tactics. Netscape attempted to play catch-up to Microsoft but ultimately failed in the end, or did they?
Enter the new king: Firefox! The root of Firefox is molded from the leftovers of the last great king, King Netscape. After King Netscape's falling in the late 90's, AOL bought the shriveling company but ultimately decided to let it go on its own thusly creating the non-profit company: Mozilla Foundation. In the darkness of Mozilla, a few developers grouped together and got back to basics. They salvaged the few remaining bits and bytes of the great King and went about creating a simple, fast graceful browser.
Before I extol the wonders of Firefox, one must answer what is so terrible about IE. Since version 6.0 of IE that debuted in 2000, development has essentially stopped. No new features or versions have been released in over 4+ years! In those past 4 years, IE has become essentially a third world bus station; the gathering point for hackers, crackers, spyware, viruses and worms. One would think a company that controlled over 90% of the browser market share would take better care of its users. But, up until recently, they didn't have to. Users had no other choice but to fight the attacks and plug the gaping holes Microsoft left open the best they could. Finally Microsoft must fight a tough battle against a very opposing enemy: Choice!
So what does the choice have in its corner to back it up against the behemoth of Microsoft? Firefox the browser is an impressive piece of software. It's free, easy to use, easy on the eyes, and safer than IE. But, Firefox's strength runs deeper than its feature-set. Firefox the phenomenon is something much bigger. It's a combination of innovations in engineering, developer politics, and consumer marketing. Firefox has the ability to gather support and harness the power of the users far more impressively than IE and it is that word of mouth advertising that has created such a spark in the browser war front.
Blog users (see last article) have created a massive get-out-the-vote effort to express the wonders of Firefox. There are communities created solely to support a Firefox campaign (SpreadFirefox.com). The community site hosts Firefox blogs and gives pointers to a volunteer army of operatives for converting the masses. SpreadFirefox.com functions as a center for marketing and developing strategies, a coordination point for coders, ad designers, and evangelists. I received an email from a member of SpreadFirefox.com quoting a blog post I wrote about the wonders of Firefox and asked if I'd put a banner and link to Firefox's website. With the voices of the bloggers rounded up, their campaign was well on the way to succeeding.
It was important for Firefox to market itself as something other than software for geeks made by geeks if it wishes to gain market share held by typical surfers. SpreadFirefox.com rounded up the ever growing users and asked them for a donation of $25 so they could put a full page ad in the New York Times. Not only did they get enough donations for the ad, but 10,000 users donated $25 or more giving them enough for a full 2 page spread on December 16th. The message in the ad was clear: There is an alternative. The ad then proceeded to list the names of all 10,000+ people that donated money. Since the ad ran and the release of Firefox version 1.0, more than 22 million people have downloaded Firefox and the number is growing rapidly.
22 million people took the choice given to them by the new king Firefox, why are you waiting. Firefox is new, fresh and clean. If you are tired of Spyware, killing popups and lack of innovation, open your IE browser one last time and head to www.getfirefox.com.
1 Comments:
Support for on the fly spell checking, weird keyboard shortcuts, and the lack of horizontal scroll wheel support will keep me out of the Firefox camp for now. But of course I'm a Mac user and my browser of choice is Safari! Yay!
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