Time For A New Browser
By Bob Boyles, President
Smarter Distribution

It seems like every day a new virus is unleashed and makes its way around the internet. For example, last Tuesday I began getting blank emails from some people i knew and a lot from people I had never heard of. Normally the Norton anti-virus I have running on my machine intercepts and deletes these viruses embedded in emails before I ever have a chance to open them. However, this time Norton missed them entirely. Fortunately, a healthy bit of skepticism about getting attachments labeled "new prices" from people I don't know caused me to delete the email without opening the attachments. This was a relatively simple virus that seemed to be more intent on propagating itself than causing harm.
However, there are new viruses on the scene that take advantage of a loop hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and will load a virus onto your computer simply by you visiting a website! This may be that last straw for Internet Explorer on my computer.

One of the great times about being a consultant is that you are constantly exposed to new and different approaches to solving the same problems. This can be a little daunting at times and occasionally leave you feeling like you got off the train a couple of stops ago. Technology is definitely a young man's game, but us old timers have our days also. (We'll leave the discussion about the fact that age discrimination is alive and well in this country for another article) But every once in a while the pace of change sweeps you up and opens some doors through which you can see some exciting things going on. I spent some time recently with a distributor that is not afraid to try new things. They had switched from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's Firefox Browser. One whiff was all it took and I was downloading this free software onto my computer back at the office.

Open Source

Those of you that have followed this column on a regular basis know about Open Source software and the widely held belief that this approach to software creation is going to upset a lot of apple carts in the proprietary world that we have become accustomed to. Mozilla, another of the open source "foundations", was created by Netscape when that company took the source code for their "Communicator" software and gave it away. That occurred in January of 1998. And what was Netscape's "Communicator" has not become Mozilla's "Firefox" Since then the product has won numerous awards and is slowly making a name for itself as a replacement for Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

FireFox

The Firefox browser has all the features you'd expect and appears to be faster to load pages and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The feature I like the most is the tabs that can have several web pages open at the same time without opening up another session of the software. So far I can report that I am happy with the software and have no intention of going back to MS's IE.

Open source software is not magic pixie dust. Indeed some studies have shown that while there may be thousands of people that have signed up to assist with the development of a particular piece of open source software the actual work is currently being done by only a handful of people. Hence we see some slow development on many of the open source projects. But adding Firefox in with Linux and PostgresSQL and you've got some fantastic pieces of software that are slowly changing the computer landscape.

Summary

When did you ever think you would see the day when Microsoft's domination of the personal computer software market would be challenged? Well it is happening in the browser market and as this occurs in other markets this make our jobs of managing IT resources more interesting. Sometimes we should all be careful what we wish for.

About Bob Boyles and Smarter Distribution:
Bob Boyles is the principal of Smarter Distribution in Coppell, Texas, a strategic coaching business focusing on assisting distributors in using technology. He is also the author of "Succeeding With Distribution Technology" a practical how-to guide for selecting and implementing the right technology. You may reach him at (972) 304-1180, via e-mail at bob@smarterdistribution.com or on the Web at www.smarterdistribution.com

© Copyright 2003, Robert S. Boyles Jr. All rights reserved. This article cannot be reprinted or reproduced in whole or in part, without the express written permission of Robert S. Boyles Jr.