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Only deadbeats use Firefox

Thursday, December 30, 2004

I’ve been asked why my employer’s site still uses tables (albiet a mix of tables and css under php), and can be answered with 2 words: “5” and “banks”...

I won’t mention them by name here, but we’re a “stichting” - the dutch word for non-profit organization - we’re a collection of governmental agencies and large institutions. And because we’re built of the best and the brightest, we need to keep using tables.

You may be crying “Why?” and all I can say is: Improper degradation. We have to, primarily because of the lingering existence of Internet Explorer 5.0 in Dutch enterprise, primarily banking and telecom sectors. These groups are major backers in our non-profit and nigh it’s impossible to get them to change their policies on installed software. I’ve used degrading CSS in designs but either our external programmers or our internal reviews have resorted to css-flavoured tables. Feh.

Which isn’t the big question - the big question is why do some of the largest organizations in The Netherlands still rely on IE 5.x?

No clear answers have emerged from my inquiries, but it’s safe to say it’s a combination of security policy, existing custom Java applications and reticence or inability to switch up to newer system software. And if you knew how old and creaky some of the the Java code was running the operations, you’d be looking for a new bank somewhere in Mauritius.

The only way out is either an enterprise-wide system upgrade, which will cost too much, or switching to a *nix alternative, which is a hard sell with the MS Office crowd.

You can’t say this enough: No policy will survive if the Boss’s secretary isn’t behind it.

image

All numbers are in thousands.

IE5 is a goliath, old and failing but still able to kill you when it decides to move and step on you. I’ve heard the some (sales?)people joke in one organization about stats—“Only deadbeats use Firefox,” one core person remarked. While our tracking shows ALL IE 5.x versions in a gradual decline, from over 70% in 2003 to less than 17% today, december 20, 2004, Firefox peaked at 7% a few months back and has also started declining to it’s current 3%. IE 6 has peaked in the summer and remains a steady 75%.

Was the Firefox blip just a test by our usergroup? Due to a seminar we held, did it perhaps represent a “different user” than normal? We’re looking through the logs now via Analog to see what component of the IE group is solely 5.0…it would make programming a little easier, but if we could upscale the entire group to open standards, we could offer better solutions. But that’s not going to happen for awhile yet.

It’s a weird dance - you zig when they want to zag, or just stand still. And face it - if we’re biased enough to support the 8-10% of Safari/Netscape/Firefox users, we should cut the same slack to the IE 5.x crowd.

But this much is sure - Firefox needs constant pushing. Pushing on your mother and father. Pushing into the corporate coffee clutches and gossip gaps that fill each hallway. It needs to occupy conversation, often and constantly, and needs to introduced to the bosses’ secretary personally. Don’t expect that one advert in the New York Times will change the world. Only continual education will.

If you want to bury old browsers this year, just do one thing: Be “tech support” for Firefox.

Posted by Admin on 12/30 at 02:56 PM
Posted in: IT notes   • Comments (2) • Permalink

  1. Awesome…. just a plain awesome and oh so explaining rant Jim smile
    Ow and…... a very very good 2005!

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/31  at  04:06 PM

  2. Thanks - umm, was I ranting?  Okay, just a little bit I guess.

    cheese

    And a Happy New Year to you too!

    Posted by Admin  on  01/01  at  11:45 AM

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