This news may come as a shocker to the tech-savvy folks in the house, but 60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser, according to Forrester Research. Meanwhile, your IT department spends a decent amount of time erecting barriers to prevent browser upgrades. Bottom line: companies need a browser policy, or they will risk productivity losses.
Welcome to the wonderful world of enterprise browser adoption. While the tech press spends a lot of time talking about Web 2.0 and even 3.0, Corporate America is on Web 0.5.
To be sure, there are good reasons for the enterprise reticence on browsers–they’re a security risk. However, too few IT departments have a browser policy, and they sure don’t think through potential productivity gains with advancements such as tabs, faster processing, and JavaScript engines and better search features.
Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish says in a research report:
As more and more companies look to SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions, and the Web delivers richer media, firms need to rethink their browser choices in concert with the Web-based apps they deploy. Today, the overwhelming majority of enterprises support Internet Explorer–remarkably, 60 percent of enterprises are still on IE 6.
I’ve witnessed the love affair with Internet Explorer 6 up close. I got a new work laptop a few months ago, and IE 6 was the default. I forgot what that browser looked like–partially because I use Firefox, but also because I had IE 7 (now IE 8 ) before. Luckily, the upgrade didn’t kill me.
Forrester’s market share stats illustrate how enterprises are sleeping through the browser wars:
- IE is the corporate browser of choice, with 78 percent of enterprises using it as a default;
- IE 6 has 60 percent of the enterprise market, with IE 7 clocking in at 39 percent;
- Firefox has 18.2 percent of the enterprise market;
- Chrome has 2 percent;
- Safari has 1.4 percent.
The problem: Information workers live in browsers all day. And companies are giving them the equivalent of a Yugo.
Why? Companies are worried about custom apps that may fail on new browsers and security and compliance. In addition, companies limit the ability to upgrade. Seventy percent of companies restrict browser choice and Web content. Forrester notes that “IT control trumps technology populism.”
Ultimately, this IT control may be short sighted, argues McLeish:
Even if enterprises lag behind in browser upgrades, leading consumer-facing Web sites take advantage of browser capabilities that enhance rendering speed, better support rich Internet applications (RIAs), and offer new privacy and security capabilities. From an information worker perspective, these benefits are only part of the picture.
Features like tabs, add-ons, quick copying, improved search and navigation, and better post-crash recovery provide tangible productivity benefits for most information workers. Address bars that double as search save time, and available add-ons feature a wide range of functionality such as better remembering of passwords and saving pages to view later without creating permanent bookmarks.
The other issue: Employees use multiple browsers, depending on various applications. We’ve become agnostic about browsers, so limiting them is the equivalent of removing a key wrench from the toolbox.
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Late last week, Microsoft Research shared a couple of things about Social Desktop, a prototype of which they are debuting at TechFest 2009 in a couple of days (along with dozens of other things). From the looks of it, this will be a much talked about product even if it stays in proof-of-concept phase for now.
And if they decide to open it up even just a little, this could be a major breakthrough in tearing down the virtual wall between the desktop and the web, a trend we’ve been noticing for years.
The service would essentially be capable of providing you with a secure unique ID for all the files and folders on your desktop, enabling users to share, comment on, tag and search files like photos and videos via a dedicated web page powered by .NET. Think of this as social URLs that link to files which could easily be pushed to third-party services like Twitter or Digg but also Microsoft’s own Windows Live Messenger without the need for you to copy, move or upload anything. Furthermore, social interaction around the files would be visible from inside the Windows desktop OS, blurring the line between the desktop and the web even more.
You can have a URL drill into a subportion of a document or a PowerPoint deck, or data can come from a Web service or a database. Social Desktop is a local service that maps the user’s local data into a .NET service bus service, enabling local data to be accessible through firewalls. Social Desktop also provides a Web-service view over the same data, with inherent RSS event streams for any container. New data sources can be mapped into the URL hierarchy, enabling a distributed view to be built. There are simple sharing paradigms that enable URLs to be shared temporarily or permanently.
Social Desktop runs on Silverlight and leverages both the Windows OS and Windows Azure, the software giant’s very own cloud services platform which Microsoft announced in October 2008. TechFlash reviewed the service as well last week, and asked the project leads how Social Desktop differs from Live Mesh. The response came from Lili Cheng, who manages Microsoft Research’s Creative Systems Group: “In the Mesh model, you can almost imagine your PC being pushed to the cloud,” she explained. “In this, you can almost imagine the Web being embedded inside your desktop.”
I don’t know about you, but to me this all sounds very promising and I’m curious if using Social Desktop would change my file sharing habits. Even with the plethora of free, simple and fast online backup and sharing services around, there’s still a trust barrier not easily overcome by startups who need to market their services extensively on an inherently low budget to reach any kind of scale. Besides, Social Desktop even relieves you from the not-so-cumbersome task of moving a file to the cloud in order to store or share it, so that makes for one hell of a substantial benefit compared to other services where you’d be required to register and do a series of actions before that happens.
Unfortunately, a Microsoft spokesperson told NetworkWorld that Social Desktop at this point is merely a research prototype which will not be a feature in Windows 7, nor will it be available for public use.
But I still want to get my hands on Windows 7 Beta (it makes use of the new operating system’s file-preview functions) right now even if just to test this application once (and if) they release it.
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Computer enthusiasts who want to get their hands on the trial version of Microsoft’s next operating system have just two more weeks to do so.
The company says it will end availability of Windows 7 Beta on Feb. 10.
There are a couple of loopholes, however. Users who started to download the OS before that date will have until Feb. 12 to complete the process. Also, Microsoft will continue to distribute product keys beyond Feb. 12 to users who have previously downloaded Windows 7 Beta but have yet to obtain a key.
“We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta,” said Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft’s in-house Windows blogger, in a post Friday.
Microsoft will post warnings on its Web site that the download program for Windows 7 is about to end starting Tuesday. A final version of Windows 7, Microsoft’s follow-up to Windows Vista, is expected to be available in late 2009 or early 2010.
Perhaps due to Vista’s unpopularity, computer users have been downloading Windows 7 Beta in droves. Microsoft dropped limits on the number of available copies of the software after a crush of download requests for the new operating system brought the company’s servers to a halt during the first weekend of availability earlier this month.
Windows 7 offers numerous new features, including native support for touch-screen interfaces and more than 20 hotkey combinations designed to simplify use.
Microsoft needs Windows 7 to be a hit. Vista has failed to catch on with mainstream computer users and businesses have shunned it outright. Many users have complained about Vista’s hardware requirements, intrusive security measures, and lack of compatibility with older applications.
Dissatisfaction with Vista has allowed Apple to gain share against Microsoft in the computer operating system market in recent months. Windows’ market share in November fell below 90% for the first time in years while Mac OS is now flirting with the 10% mark, according to market watcher Net Applications.
It’s all taking a toll on Microsoft’s bottom line. Last week, the company said second quarter profits tumbled 11%. It also announced a restructuring plan that will see it lay off 5,000 full-time employees and an additional 5,000 contract workers.
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