Mozilla evangelist Aza Dotzler drew a line in the sand this week, saying that the company hasn't been concerned with the business community's complaints about its Firefox Web browser, and it shouldn't ever be. But IT administrators who winced at those words may have a new ally in Google's Chrome development team.
As popular as Firefox is with their users, businesses have been decrying Mozilla's typical, rapid-fire schedule of updates to the browser. They claim that the frenzied schedule poses a challenge for testing and deploying Firefox updates throughout an organization, particularly ones that may be supporting thousands of clients running Firefox, or those that have many custom in-house Web apps.
Even worse by enterprise lights, after only three weeks of release, Mozilla has declared Firefox 4 support end-of-lifed with the release of Firefox 5.
"Tying Firefox product development to an organizational process we do not control would make it difficult for us to continue to innovate for our users and the betterment of the Web," said another key spokesman, Mozilla channel manager Kev Needham.
While Mozilla reiterates that business organizations' interests are not critical to Firefox's development, Google is taking great lengths to reassure that same audience about its commitment to commercial customers. Glenn Wilson, product manager of Chrome for Business said that although Google's browser has just as rapid of an update process as Firefox (updates are pushed out every six weeks), the Chrome team is focused on achieving a balance between security updates and compatibility.
"We have been listening to admins and they have been helping drive a road map," Wilson said recently. For Google, adoption of Chrome in the enterprise, schools and government "is a priority," he added.
That priority takes shape in several native capabilities intended to make Chrome more appealing to IT. One such feature included is support for Group Policy. Although Google's Chrome team only supports the current version of Chrome, with Group Policy integration, administrators can delay updating until a newer version of Chrome is fully tested to ensure compatibility with custom Web apps or other browser-based software.
This way, in the event an update does break a critical piece of software, admins can say, "Don't update until we can find out what's going on," Wilson said.
System administrators can also manage usage of extensions for Chrome through Group Policy. There are several policy templates that Google offers for Chrome to help with the management and customization of Chrome settings in a corporate environment.
Another big feature for business users is an MSI installer, which allows IT to roll out Chrome using standard deployment methods.
Google also offers another tool to alleviate pain points for business—the Google Chrome Frame. It's a plug-in that delivers Chrome's Open Web technology and JaveScript engine to IE. Organizations who want to hold off on auto-updating Chrome can do so and still offer managed Chrome Frame to their users.
Additionally, Google Apps users can call Google for Chrome support, if needed.
In contrast to Mozilla, Google seems focused on not alienating businesses and a big reason for that is its continued push for Google Chrome OS. During the All Things Digital D9 conference in April, Rajen Sheth, a group product manager and business manager at Google, put it bluntly, "My mission is to bring Chrome to business and to ask how we make it something that can reshape the enterprise desktop."
Google is banking on its business customers' love for Chrome to naturally morph into love for Chrome OS. That's not a bad bet.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387704,00.asp
As popular as Firefox is with their users, businesses have been decrying Mozilla's typical, rapid-fire schedule of updates to the browser. They claim that the frenzied schedule poses a challenge for testing and deploying Firefox updates throughout an organization, particularly ones that may be supporting thousands of clients running Firefox, or those that have many custom in-house Web apps.
Even worse by enterprise lights, after only three weeks of release, Mozilla has declared Firefox 4 support end-of-lifed with the release of Firefox 5.
"Tying Firefox product development to an organizational process we do not control would make it difficult for us to continue to innovate for our users and the betterment of the Web," said another key spokesman, Mozilla channel manager Kev Needham.
While Mozilla reiterates that business organizations' interests are not critical to Firefox's development, Google is taking great lengths to reassure that same audience about its commitment to commercial customers. Glenn Wilson, product manager of Chrome for Business said that although Google's browser has just as rapid of an update process as Firefox (updates are pushed out every six weeks), the Chrome team is focused on achieving a balance between security updates and compatibility.
"We have been listening to admins and they have been helping drive a road map," Wilson said recently. For Google, adoption of Chrome in the enterprise, schools and government "is a priority," he added.
That priority takes shape in several native capabilities intended to make Chrome more appealing to IT. One such feature included is support for Group Policy. Although Google's Chrome team only supports the current version of Chrome, with Group Policy integration, administrators can delay updating until a newer version of Chrome is fully tested to ensure compatibility with custom Web apps or other browser-based software.
This way, in the event an update does break a critical piece of software, admins can say, "Don't update until we can find out what's going on," Wilson said.
System administrators can also manage usage of extensions for Chrome through Group Policy. There are several policy templates that Google offers for Chrome to help with the management and customization of Chrome settings in a corporate environment.
Another big feature for business users is an MSI installer, which allows IT to roll out Chrome using standard deployment methods.
Google also offers another tool to alleviate pain points for business—the Google Chrome Frame. It's a plug-in that delivers Chrome's Open Web technology and JaveScript engine to IE. Organizations who want to hold off on auto-updating Chrome can do so and still offer managed Chrome Frame to their users.
Additionally, Google Apps users can call Google for Chrome support, if needed.
In contrast to Mozilla, Google seems focused on not alienating businesses and a big reason for that is its continued push for Google Chrome OS. During the All Things Digital D9 conference in April, Rajen Sheth, a group product manager and business manager at Google, put it bluntly, "My mission is to bring Chrome to business and to ask how we make it something that can reshape the enterprise desktop."
Google is banking on its business customers' love for Chrome to naturally morph into love for Chrome OS. That's not a bad bet.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387704,00.asp