Microsoft: Firefox does not threaten IE's market share
Summary: Internet Explorer is no less secure than any other browser on the market and does not lack any important features, according to Microsoft. But the managing director of Cisco admitted that he wouldn't use IE without additional protection.
At a security round-table discussion in Sydney on Thursday, Microsoft's security and management product manager, Ben English, told attendees that IE undergoes "rigorous code reviews" and is no less secure than any other browser.
"Because IE is ubiquitous you hear a lot more about it, but I don't think that Internet Explorer is any less secure than any other browser out there," said English.
However, Ross Fowler, managing director of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, said the network giant uses IE internally but only after deploying its Secure Agent, which is a desktop utility that monitors all activity and alerts the user if it spots something unusual -- such as a keystroke logging program.
"Internally we have deployed Cisco Secure Agent to prevent those day-zero attacks and we have more and more of our customers -- particularly in the University sector -- deploying the Cisco secure agent," said Fowler.
No threat from Firefox
Microsoft Australia's managing director, Steve Vamos, said that he did not believe IE's market share was under threat after the recent high profile launch of Mozilla's Firefox browser.
Vamos said that although he has heard other people mention the threat posed by Firefox, he does not believe the threat is real.
"I'm not sure that that is the reality. I have seen comments around that but there is nothing I can refer to that really supports that," he said. Instead, Vamos added, users needed educating about all the features already offered by Microsoft's browser.
"We probably need to do a bit of work to communicate the features that are in IE," he said.
Vamos, who admitted he has never used Firefox, said there is a lot of hype surrounding the open source movement and if Microsoft's customers wanted new features they would have told the company about it.
"I don't agree is that just because a (competing) product has a feature that we don't have, that feature is important. It is not. It is only important if it is a feature the customer wants. There are plenty of products out there with features we don't have. We have plenty of features that our customers don't use.
"If there are features in our products that are sub-par or need to be added then I have great confidence that we are an organisation that responds pretty quickly and effectively to that," said Vamos.
Microsoft's English reiterated that features such as tabbed browsing were not important to IE users.
"I don't believe it is a true statement that IE doesn't have the features that our customers want. We take user feedback very seriously. If you have that feedback then you should feed it back to us because we will feed it to the product team," said English.
If ZDNet Australia readers have suggestions for features they would like to see in IE, either use the talkback below or e-mail the edit team . We will pass your messages on to both Ben English and Steve Vamos.
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Talkback
Good one. Always blame the number, eh? How about the fact that IE integrates soooo deeply into Windows that any hole causes complete meltdown. Ah, never mind that...
> "We probably need to do a bit of work to communicate the features that are in IE," he said.
Ain't that grand. Fix technical shortcomings with more marketing. Anyone remembers the "technical" letter that explained why graphical subsystem has to go into the kernel with the release of NT 4.0? Sounds a bit like that...
> Vamos, who admitted he has never used Firefox,
So, all the comparisons of Firefox and IE are actually quite meaningless, coming from Vamos, aren't they?
Also the fact that a lot of other people are constantatly adding features to the browser, though on occassion not reliable, has produced some nice utilities that I wouldn't have though I wanted. For example a weather update tool that sits in my status bar.
My point is that you don't always know what you want until you see it. And MS has been conservative in trying new innovative features for IE.
"Vamos said that although he has heard other people mention the threat posed by Firefox, he does not believe the threat is real."
- You're one of the leaders in the MS operation here and you've only heard second hand knowledge/comments on the widely publicised (but unbelievable to you) threat posed to one of your prime products? Arrogance, ignorance or incompetence - you chose.
"...if Microsoft's customers wanted new features they would have told the company about it"
- web developers have been screaming for years about the misinterpretation of CSS standards in IE. Which deaf ear has MS been listening with all this time? Or is standards compliance not considered a feature?
The crux is, I don't really care about whether MS add _new_ features, just fix the ones that are there and above all, bring the standards compliance up to par. It won't make a difference to me, I'll still use Firefox as it has basic "features you don't have", but it's frustrating that I still have to develop to MS poor standards implementation.
Microsoft has spent gazillions developing Internet Explorer, destroying Netscape with predatory pricing, and using anticompetitive bundling to ensure it cornered the Web browser market . . . And for WHAT? No revenue, millions of disgruntled users and a bottomless pit into which it keeps pouring money to try and plug the never-ending stream of security flaws which the company is now obligated to fix at no charge.
Great strategy, Bill!
I've said it before (for at least 10 years now) and I'll keep saying it: M$ is their own worst enemy!
Microsoft IE7 witch probably will be released with the new version of Windows (codenamed Longhorn) will probably also feature stuff like Tabbed Browsing etc. But it will probably miss the add-on stuff that the Mozilla Firefox extensions allow.
If Microsoft wants to keep its IE in the market leader position in the future, they need to put more effort into it. i.e, put some tabbed browsing in it
So for them to state that they're "innovative" and that open source goes against innovation is clearly just a load of rubbish.
Personally I think both Firefox and IE Lack any real features at all...tabbed browsing...how longs that been around...
MS 0wns you, face it. Stop being Hippies and get on with your lives, Windows and Internet Explorer are superior to every other OS/Browser out there, and personally Im waiting for when Firefox gains 10% of the market share, it will have a New Security Exploit everyday!