We here at Silicon Prairie aren’t professional market researchers, but we do like to know what’s happening in the world of corporate computing before we read about it elsewhere. So we’ve assembled a small, knowledgeable and more than a little cantankerous group of programmers, engineers, developers and managers to whom we talk regularly for insight into what’s happening on corporate desktops and hidden inside corporate networks.
One trend we’re noticing is a change in the way companies are upgrading their Internet browsers. Back in 1994 and 1995, you were lucky to get any browser working on your machine. In the days of Win32 extensions, competing TCP-IP stacks and the 8.3 filename, getting any version of the many browsers then available (Mozilla, BookWorks, WinWeb, a half dozen flavors of Mosaic) to work on networked computers was an art somewhere between sorcery and dumb luck. Now all the major operating systems have Internet connectivity built in, so network administrators can move to the next question: How committed to which vendors is management? Do as we say Our sources tell us that there are two kinds of people using browsers on networks: those who are happy to use whatever they are given and those who want more control. The battle is similar to that in other software areaswe all know someone who hates Excel and insists on working in 1-2-3, for example. But the browser arena is significant for network administrators because browsers are networked applications. When a single person uses a spreadsheet different from other employees, there are inevitable interoperability problems, but issues with proxy servers, RSAC, signed application security and so on don’t arise.
“There are only two browsers, right?” one CIO for a Chicago telecommunications company rhetorically asked. “They do pretty much the same thing. Our firm has a deal with Microsoft. We use their browser. Period. It’s free, unlike Netscape’s, so we have a rule on our network: Internet Explorer is the only permitted browser. By building our intranet on ActiveX controls and Active Server Pages, there is crucial contentHR information, 401(k) informationthat can’t be touched unless you’re using the browser we install on every machine. But at least once a day, someone on my staff deals with an issue caused by someone freelancing on his own browser. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.” The latest in browsing
As browser upgrade cycles speed up, such issues become more common. But as companies continue to upgrade to version 4 of Microsoft and Netscape browsers, here’s what’s being discovered: Not a single one of the companies surveyed recommends its customers use the push lements of any browser. Some are even distributing Netscape Navigator without the Netcaster push client installed. All of the companies eploying Internet Explorer are doing so with the desktop-integration function turned off. No one trusts it yet. Some companies are keeping ersion 3 of either browser as long as possible, since network administrators want to go through the installation process only once. With the new Netscape up to version 4.04, the companies last to install may find the fewest problems. The administrator to whom we spoke who installed 4.0, two versions of 4.01, 4.02, and two versions of 4.03 was not happy. How are you managing browsers on your network? We want to know.
