Mozilla changes tune on Firefox enterprise support
Mozilla has moved to assure business users that it cares about them after all, a month after its browser chief said the enterprise had never been a focus for the company.
In June, Asa Dotzler responded to complaints about the newly-accelerate Firefox release schedule by saying the enterprise, where IT managers need more time to make sure updates do not break web apps, was "really just a drop in the bucket" for Mozilla. The company has now reversed its stance, saying on Tuesday that it was re-establishing its Mozilla Enterprise User Working Group.
"Online life is evolving faster than ever and it's imperative that Mozilla deliver improvements to the Web and to Firefox more quickly to reflect this," the company said in a blog post. "This has created challenges for IT departments that have to deliver lots of mission-critical applications through Firefox. Mozilla is fundamentally about people and we care about our users wherever they are."
The company said that the working group would be "a place for enterprise developers, IT staff and Firefox developers to discuss the challenges, ideas and best practices for deploying Firefox in the enterprise", and would serve as a forum for asking questions and getting information about Mozilla's plans.
"The group will have conversations on the discussion list and during in person meetings as well as during monthly phone meetings," the post continued. "The monthly meetings will focus on a topic. In the past we've discussed topics like add-on management and security. The next meeting we hold will discuss the release cycle and how enterprises can use Firefox in a way that fits into their own testing and release cycles."
According to the post, participants' privacy will be preserved so that discussions can be open, but summaries of those talks will be made public "so that everyone can benefit from them".
Recent statistics have shown that Firefox's share of the browser market is staying more-or-less flat at around 22 percent, while Google's Chrome OS, in third place at 13 percent, is gaining an increasing proportion of the user base. Market leader Internet Explorer's share continues to fall, now standing at just under 54 percent.