According to Cnet, 10 percent of IBM’s staff already use the Open Source Firefox web browser, and IBM is going to offically back Firefox as the browser of choice for IBM staff. That accounts for an extra 300,000 users. They think it will save them money by allowing them to create extensions specific to their needs. No doubt it will also help IBM transition their staff towards Linux on the desktop, something they have alluded to several times in the past. Since Firefox looks and works the same in Windows and Linux, getting the staff to use it on Windows means they won’t need to learn a new browser when Linux time rolls around. IBM has had a dislike of Microsoft since the OS2 debacle and perhaps before, so the transition to non MS software is hardly surprising. The Cnet article goes into much more detail.
