Firefox

One of the best examples of the power of Open Source software to reach the streets in the last few years. Its early releases got rave reviews in the press as it introduced a number of features missing in the more popular browsers.

A major feature of this product is that it runs on the world's three main client platforms: Windows, Linux and Macs. This gives it a huge benefit in migration strategies. One of the main reasons cited by IT managers for not moving to Open Source software is that the potential costs of retraining staff in almost every aspect of their desktop outweigh the savings. But multi-platform products like this can be adopted stand-alone, independent of the platform, so a migration strategy, and all the cost savings associated with it, can be planned over a period of time.

 

 

By the way, a Firefox is a real animal: it's a nickname of the red panda, a smaller relative of the giant panda famous throughout the world. They live in the forests of southern Asia, where their populations are under threat from hunters and habitat destruction.

Although, given that this piece of information about the red panda's nickname has now been removed from the BBC web site, it may have been just a rumour to associate a rare a cuddly animal with the product.