What's the best browser for the enterprise?

In a recent article at eWeek, they look at how Internet Explorer is one of the most widely used browsers in the enterprise, but may not be the best for the industry. They state that IE6 and IE7 are loosing market share quickly, but IE8 and Firefox 3 are gaining share quickly. He also points out that Firefox now controls 27.73%of the market, and Google, Opera and Apple all have single digit market share. So if IE is not the best for the enterprise, why does it have such a corner on the market? The article looks to suggest that since it is a standard feature on all new PCs, many companies see it as a quick and easy way for their employees to surf the web. What do you think? What is the best browser for the enterprise, and will IE loose its share anytime soon?

Mozilla Announces New Version of Weave Tool

This post on Read Write Web discussed that while Google announced that they were going to cancel their Browser Sync tool, Mozilla is releasing a new version of their comparative tool Weave. In the initial version, it was not as good as Google’s but the recent updates will help browsers sync more seamlessly. This could mean a lot to enterprises who want to standardize favorites lists all of their employee’s computers. In addition to synching bookmarks, other applications of this tool include that it saves: cookies, passwords, form data, tabs, and browsing history. Combined, this could help power the enterprise to collaborate better.

Collaboration leads to Edit-able Page Button

According to this article here at Read Write Web, collaborative efforts of 20 wiki providers has lead to a new add-on for Firefox. This new button, which will be located near the auto discovery RSS feed detector will indicate any time a web page is able to be publicly edited.

The groups hopes for this new add-on is that it:

"will be a convenience to web surfers who are already inclined to contribute, and an invitation to those who have yet to discover the thrill of building a common resource."

If wiki editors were able to work together to come up with this tool, imagine the power it will be able to give the users who constantly create content on websites. It will be easy to detect where they can give input, leading to more collaboration throughout the World Wide Web.

Mobile FireFox Might Be the Key

As mentioned in our previous post, Firefox is slowly increasing its market share as the world’s premier internet browser. A mobile browsing app called FireFox Mobile has been in the works for some time, but according to this latest post on TechCrunch it is actually taking shape.

What’s interesting about this mobile user interface is that it will be fundamentally easy to use with touch-screen smartphones. This is heaven for Palm Treo and iPhone users. FireFox Mobile will reduce the amount of typing required by simply scrolling down and makes it easier to send email, search Google, or mapping locations with any of its pre-defined buttons.

Collaboration in the enterprise is reaching new heights as we are experiencing a lot of changes in mobile applications. I would like to see how FireFox Mobile will make life simpler for those users who do not have touch-screen smartphones like the Blackberry. FireFox Mobile is still at its beta phase though, I’m sure the end result will be something that all enterprise users will be able to take advantage of.

Firefox to hit 20% World Market Share in July

According to this article at CNet, Firefox will own 20% of the world’s browser market share in July. There are many reasons for this, but one may that they’ve begun to include a box when installing that asks to make FireFox the default browser.

Matt Astray at C-Net belives that there are two reasons that people have begun to to use Firefox over IE:

1. It works better (Better security, better performance, better functionality).
2. It's much more customizable.

The article also states that at one point, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer held 96% of the world’s browser market, and now, they’re down to 80%. Firefox is slowly gaining on the market share.