IBM (NYSE: IBM) executive Bob Sutor made his reasons quite clear in announcing the company's decision to move its 400,000 employees to Firefox, praising the browser's interoperability, open source, compliance with standards, as well as a development schedule not tied to a particular vendor. In a blog post July 1, Sutor wrote, "Firefox is now the gold standard for what an open, secure, and standards-compliant browser should be."

Calling IBM's move "a major endorsement of the browser's suitability in large-scale enterprise environments," Ryan Paul at Ars Technica noted that corporations historically have been leery about using the free, open source Firefox because it can be hard to deploy and manage on an organization-wide basis. While Mozilla set up an Enterprise Working Group in 2007 to look into those difficulties, it hasn't been at the top of its priority list, Paul writes. However, tools developed by third parties can simplify enterprise deployment.

The Big Blue browser switch could suggest that IBM is concerned not only about being tied to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) through its control of IE, but equally concerned about other rivals, including Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) with its Safari browser, and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) with Chrome, writes Jon Brodkin at NetworkWorld.

Whether other large corporations are going to follow IBM's lead remains to be seen, but some industry observers think it's very possible. In a post at Download Squad, Lee Mathews writes, "IBM's browser action speaks loudly, and there's every chance their example will be followed."

For more:
- see Bob Sutor's post at IBM blog
- see Ryan Paul's post at Ars Technica
- see Jon Brodkin's article at NetworkWorld
- see Lee Mathews' post at DownloadSquad

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