IBM updates Linux desktop with Firefox support

SAN FRANCISCO--IBM has updated its Workplace desktop software product with support for the Firefox Web browser, the company said on Tuesday.

IBM's Workplace software provides functions such as word processing, document storage and calendars. The processing actually takes place on a central server that people access with a Web browser.

Previously, IBM supported only Mozilla and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Firefox is the default Web browser in Red Hat and Suse Linux, though it's also widely used on Windows, and has been gaining market share.

special coverage LinuxWorld SF Open-source hopefuls join Linux stalwarts to talk shop and hawk wares at the confab.

Big Blue announced the move at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. However, it tipped its hand with the move when it advertised to hire Firefox programmers earlier this year.

IBM helped catalyze the Linux business with its vocal support of the open-source operating system. It competes in the Linux server market against Dell and Hewlett-Packard and in the Linux software market against BEA Systems and Oracle.

Also at the show, IBM announced it has reorganized its Linux sales operations. Previously, products using the open-source software were sold by specialists in those products--mainframes, Intel-based servers or Websphere application software, for example.

Now, IBM uses an approach with sales specialists geared to customer headaches in specific industries such as insurance, aerospace, retail or entertainment, said Scott Handy, IBM's vice president of worldwide Linux work. Other sales specialists also tackle specific information technology subjects such as increasing a business's flexibility, he said.

To: N3WBI3; ShadowAce; Tribune7; frogjerk; Salo; LTCJ; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; Buck W.; clyde asbury; ...

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2 posted on 08/10/2005 8:06:10 AM PDT by N3WBI3 (If SCO wants to go fishing they should buy a permit and find a lake like the rest of us..)

Good news for FireFox. Nice to see it starting to make some inroads into the IE dominated browser market. Even if FireFox doesn't catch up to IE, Microsoft needs the competition to break out of the static mode their browser was in. It wIll be interesting to see how IE 7.0 stacks up.

3 posted on 08/10/2005 8:18:06 AM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to liberals as holy water is to vampires)

4 posted on 08/10/2005 8:01:21 PM PDT by clyde asbury (Reality is the new fiction, they say. Truth is truer these days. Truth is man-made.)

It wIll be interesting to see how IE 7.0 stacks up.

Too bad we will only be able to see how it stacks up on XP.

Microsoft is saying, "Upgrade or we will abandon you."

Again.

5 posted on 08/10/2005 8:11:31 PM PDT by Knitebane (Happily Microsoft free since 1999.)

No, no, no.. you must be wrong..

My good buddy Golden Eagle assured me that 2000 updates would continue just the same as they always have. When I said that you would no longer see functionality upgrades he made a case that I was wrong...

6 posted on 08/10/2005 8:48:34 PM PDT by N3WBI3 (If SCO wants to go fishing they should buy a permit and find a lake like the rest of us..)

What?!?

GE lied??

I'm shocked. /end sarcasm

7 posted on 08/10/2005 8:59:14 PM PDT by Knitebane (Happily Microsoft free since 1999.)

You said all updates were ending. Repeatedly. Don't try to slither out of it now.

Will there be an IE7 update for 2k, after all its going to eb there for XP..

9 posted on 08/11/2005 5:41:46 AM PDT by N3WBI3 (If SCO wants to go fishing they should buy a permit and find a lake like the rest of us..)

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