[Solar-general] Firefox en las noticias, buen artículo en inglés http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2005/tc20050112_0827_tc119.htm

[Marcos Guglielmetti]

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2005/tc20050112_0827_tc119.htm

	Es interesante cuando dice que:

	"Firefox podría producir un impacto extra en el futuro de internet. Si 
Mozilla y los otros navegadores no-Microsoft se mantienen o siguen creciendo, 
el 15% de los sitios Web que no son completamente compatibles con navegadores 
no-Microsoft tendrán la presión de diseñar sus sitios bajo caracterísitcas 
libres (entiéndase estandards libres). De ese modo, Microsoft no estará 
capacitado para controlar cómo es presentado el contenido en la WEB."

	Esto es importantísimo, y tiene que ver con lo que se venía discutiendo en 
varias ocasiones en esta lista de SOLAR.

	También es interesante cuando comenta que una desarrolladora de Mozilla es 
reconocida por gente desconocida en sus actividades cotidianas. "Are you from 
Mozilla? Firefox changed my life!" 

	El artículo:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2005/tc20050112_0827_tc119.htm

	JANUARY 12, 2005   

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Steve Hamm

Mozilla Is Gaining on Godzilla
With the open-source community on its side and many lessons learned, the 
browser upstart keeps taking market-share from Microsoft

How's this for a mismatch? On one side, you have Microsoft (MSFT ), the 
world's largest software company, with $37 billion in revenues and 57,000 
employees. On the other is the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with a $2 
million budget and just 16 employees wedged into a single room in a Mountain 
View (Calif.) office park.
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It's Godzilla vs. Mozilla, and Mozilla is a midget. Yet the pipsqueak is 
pulling off a feat that would have seemed preposterous a year ago. It's 
taking chunks of share from Microsoft in the Internet browsing market. 
According to a survey released Jan. 12 by Web site analytics firm 
WebSideStory, Mozilla's free Firefox browser has grabbed a 4.6% share over 
the past six months and seems well on the way to its stated goal of 10%.

"EMOTIONAL NUMBER."  Microsoft's Internet Explorer has slipped 4.9 percentage 
points over the past six months, to 90.6%, the lowest in three years. "It's 
an emotional number. When Microsoft drops to 90%, it's big news," says 
Jeffrey W. Lunsford, WebSideStory's chairman.

Microsoft is hardly on the run. It has an overwhelming lead, and most 
corporations have adopted its browser for their employees, so it should have 
staying power. But many of the 16 million consumers who have switched to 
Firefox view the upstart program as safer from viruses and packed with 
innovations. Those include a "tabbed browsing" feature that makes it easier 
to move quickly from one Web site to another, in part by firing up a series 
of favorite sites all at once.

But Microsoft has been working hard to clamp down on security and vows to make 
other improvements. "These features, along with Microsoft's world-class 
customer support, continue to make IE a compelling choice for consumers and 
enterprise customers," says a spokesman.

BEYOND BROWSERS.  Still, analysts say Firefox could have an outsize impact on 
the Net's future. If Mozilla and the other non-Microsoft browser outfits hold 
their own or gain share, the 15% of Web sites that aren't completely 
compatible with non-Microsoft browsers will come under pressure to design 
their sites to open Net standards. That way, Microsoft won't be able to 
control how content is presented on the Web.

It would also create opportunities for competitors to sell rival Net software 
-— since Microsoft wouldn't be able to take advantage of the links between 
Windows and its Net programs. "We're not out to get Microsoft," says Mozilla 
Foundation President Mitchell Baker. "Our goal is to offer people a better 
experience so the Web remains open, and people actually have a choice."

The Mozilla team isn't stopping with browsers. In recent months, it has been 
hard at work on other kinds of software. An e-mail program called Thunderbird 
was released in mid-December and has since been downloaded more than 2 
million times. The group has a handful of other programs on the drawing 
board, including an electronic calendar called Sunbird and a small browser 
for cell phones and personal digital assistants code-named Minimo. These are 
slated for release in 2005 or 2006.

GUERRILLA TACTICS.  Mozilla's provenance is as improbable as its burst of 
success. It was born inside Web pioneer Netscape Communications in 1998 to 
harness the budding open-source software movement. The idea was that 
volunteer programmers from around the world would help make improvements to 
the company's browser.

After America Online (TWX) bought Netscape in 1999, Mozilla lost steam. Then a 
year and a half ago, it was reborn as an independent organization funded by 
AOL, IBM (IBM ), Sun Microsystems (SUNW ), and Nokia (NOK ).

Independence seems to have been a tonic. Development raced ahead for Firefox, 
a new browser design. It's free, but Mozilla asks users to make 
tax-deductible donations to support development efforts. Without a remarkable 
guerrilla marketing campaign, Firefox adoption might not have leapt ahead so 
rapidly. The campaign, called SpreadFirefox, was orchestrated by a handful of 
Mozilla fans and carried out by 58,000 volunteers. The campaign has tapped 
into Web logs, or blogs, to generate buzz.

LIFE-ALTERING?  It not only set up its own blog to coordinate activities but 
it also hooks up with other ones to expand its reach. If a blogger says nice 
things about Firefox, for example, he's rewarded with links to his own site. 
The campaign "is fanning the flames," says analyst Stacey Quandt of 
researcher Robert Frances Group.

All of this has been a pinch-yourself experience for Mozilla's Baker. A former 
Netscaper, she became accustomed to laboring in obscurity during the Mozilla 
project's early days. Now she's struggling with the group's recognition. She 
gets buttonholed by parents at her son's school and approached by strangers 
at exercise class.

Recently, after Baker handed a Mozilla T-shirt to a friend at Trapeze Arts, 
the circus-skills gym where she works out, a nearby woman burst out: "Are you 
from Mozilla? Firefox changed my life!" She then kneeled and bowed before a 
stunned Baker.

These may be heady times for the Mozilla crew, but they know not to take their 
sudden success for granted. They remember how Netscape was crushed by the 
Microsoft juggernaut. But now, the game is different. Mozilla has the vast 
and vibrant open-source movement on its side. This time, Godzilla may not 
dominate the way it has in the past. 
-- 
-- Marcos Guglielmetti
-- www.pc-musica.com.ar