JT’s blog

Join the Firefox Enterprise Working Group

Firefox has shown incredible growth in the consumer market over the past few years. We have done that through laser focus on developing a product with the user’s interests driving our decisions (in addition to a little marketing and lots of happy users spreading the word). With that focus on users, we have not been as focused on serving large organizations. While we do know that some major corporations deploy Firefox, we haven’t been able to address their needs with the same veracity that we have for individual users (luckily we are an open source organization!).

To help figure out what can be done to make Firefox the best choice for enterprises (we define this as large companies as well as non-profits, educational institutions, governments and even medium size businesses), some Firefox community members have gathered to form the Firefox Enterprise Working Group.

The group will take a similar approach to the Firefox Support Working Group: understand the current state of the market, identify ways to improve our support of enterprise and build consensus around what action is possible by Mozilla community and MoCo. I am looking forward to working with them.

Check out the info from the two community leaders Michael and Yuriy:
What
The first Global call focused on the Enterprise Working Group around Firefox is currently scheduled for July 25, 10:00am Pacific, 1:00pm Eastern, 17:00 UTC.
Where
Please see http://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise for Objectives, Rules of Engagement, and Dial-in Info.
How
Each of the calls will be organized around a central theme, with the primary goal being to simply communicate information and document that information, in the hopes that people inside and outside the group can learn from our experiences.

P.S. Figuring out enterprise is particularly important in locales where a majority of users access the internet through the workplace (or at least a large percentage of them). For us to ensure meaningful market share, we don’t necessarily need a full outbound enterprise program overnight, but we do need to work well for those who are interested in using Firefox. That is what we are trying to figure.

Firefox market share trending up globally

Thanks to all the hard work of the Mozilla community, Firefox market share is trending up all over the globe. Check out this Xiti Monitor article (in French) that goes in to more detail. Hopefully, with our efforts to help develop and support the marketing communities in each locale, we can help accelerate this growth.

support.mozilla.com and community support sites

Since the Firefox Support community working group announced its PRD to create a knowledge base, forum and live chat at support.mozilla.com, many people have asked me how this will affect the community support sites around the globe. I will answer that in two parts: 1) Why we think the community driven support.mozilla.com is important 2) Community support sites are and will still be integral parts of the Mozilla community

For the long time that Mozilla has not addressed user support of Firefox, these community sites have done an incredible job providing user support on behalf of the Mozilla community. However, as the user base has grown beyond tech savvy users, the support needs for Firefox have changed. After an open planning process of a few months, the support working group has determined the best way to meet the needs of the average Firefox user is to create SUMO.

Firefox support, even on Mozilla.com, will always be community driven. We couldn’t and, just as important, wouldn’t have it any other way. We also need to increase participation beyond the current contributors to meet the expected demand. To get involved, please contact me at jt at mozilla dot com.

We fully expect that community support sites will continue to meet the needs of their users after the launch of SUMO. The larger the support community there is, the better things are for Mozilla users (Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Camino, etc). I suspect there will be lots we can all learn from each other.

What about L10n?
The SUMO project will first be rolled out for en-US (because we have volunteers to make it happen). Locales who want to participate in the beta of SUMO are definitely welcome. Please contact me at jt at mozilla dot com for more information. Until others are rolled out, we will link to the community support sites in those locales (similar to what we do now).

Firefox Support Project Manager

As a part of our efforts to improve Firefox support, we are looking for a Firefox Support Project Manager. If you are interested or know someone who is interested, please let me know (jt at mozilla dot com).

Thanks,

JT

Firefox Support Project Manager

Duties:
Responsible for all aspects of the support.mozilla.com platform
Mobilize volunteers for successful platform roll out and continued support
Spearhead efforts to recruit and train more volunteers
Develop and track metrics to ensure quality user support and healthy support community
Identity, develop and support volunteer community
Develop and implement formal feedback loops
Serve as primary interface for support between marketing, product, QA and engineering
Responsible for overall user care efforts (including responding to letters, voicemails, etc.)

Required Qualifications:
Team player attitude
Self-motivated and quick learner
Excellent verbal and interpersonal skills
Excellent written communication skills
Strong multitasking and troubleshooting skills
Good organization and time management skills
Customer management skills
Familiarity with personal computers, desktop applications, web browsers, and Windows operating systems
Strong familiarity with Mozilla and Firefox required, experience working with open source or community driver organization strongly preferred

Firefox support platform vendor selection call today

Tuesday, July 3rd at 2pm pacific time– we will decide between the mediawiki/drupal, tikiwiki and jive software systems for the support knowledge base and forum platform.

Call in details:
* California: 650-903-0800 then extension 91
* Toronto: 416-848-3114 then extension 91
* Toll-free: 800-707-2533 (866-879-4799 as a backup) then password 369
* Conference bridge: 280

Agenda:
General overview of process
Walk through of matrix for each solution
Decision time!

The latest of the requirements matrix:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pnnxzqhCygtc_zRTAr0C-VQ

What a trip! Mozilla’s last few days in Brazil cap off an amazing week

This is my last posting from Brazil. It has been an incredibly successful and worthwhile trip! We have traveled to 4 different cities in 8 days, collaborated with enthusiastic and talented students at 6 of the top universities, met with representatives from the largest portals and sites in Brazil (UOL.com, Globo.com and Buscape.com), spoke to more than 1000 people about the importance of Firefox in keeping the web free and open, been interviewed by 3 of the top news outlets in Brazil, treated many of our pt-br Firefox localization team to a pizza dinner and learned invaluable information about a very important country for Mozilla’s future.

We have met so many wonderful and dedicated (or soon to be dedicated) Mozilla community members. They are the reason why there are more than 3.5 million Brazilians using Firefox today and will be the reason that number continues to increase. At one of our community gatherings, one of our volunteers commented on how much he appreciated our live updates on this blog. He said that he really felt that we (Mozilla) are really trying to understand Brazil and to make the web better for the 30 million and growing Brazilians who use the web. Ultimately though, no one will know Brazil better than our Brazilian community leaders—we look forward to helping in your efforts to spread Firefox.

One of the most important things we learned during the past 8 days is that almost 70% of Brazilians access the internet using IE 6. And, many, if not most of them are using an unlicensed version of Windows (no one knew the exact number, but the general consensus is that the number is very high). With no Window’s license, these users don’t get updates to Windows or to IE 6. That means that the majority of Brazilian internet users are very venerable to the many nasty attacks out there on the web. The good news is that Firefox can help. Because Firefox has an awesome automatic updater that runs outside of the Window’s update system, Firefox users easily and quickly get the most up to date version of Firefox to keep them safe on the web. This problem was reiterated to us everywhere we went in Brazil– many of our community members have volunteered to help explore ways to get this message out. If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear them.

A few highlights of the last 2 days:
We spoke to the engineering, marketing and product teams at UOL.com, Brazil’s largest portal and incredibly gracious hosts. We also met with some of the founders of Buscape.com, which is very similar to Shopping.com and is a leader in Brazil and a fast grower around Latin America. We also made presentations to students at Unicamp (University of Campinas) and the University of Sao Paulo, where we were asked everything from “how did you come up with the name Firefox” to “how to I get involved in other ways besides coding.”

The highlights of the past 2 days were definitely our Mozilla community gathering and our dinner with localization team. At the community gathering, we spent more than three hours brainstorming ways of spreading Firefox, trying to get their perspective of the state of the web in Brazil and then did a general question and answer session. The future of Mozilla Brazil was definitely sitting in that room! We also were fortunate enough (even though it was a 21 hour day) to be able to have dinner with many of our localizers for Firefox. I think the picture of the group shows how much fun it can be to be a key contributor to Firefox.

My favorite two non-Mozilla pictures and a general thought:
These are both from the small airport we flew in to on our way to Sao Carlos. One is a sign that shows the systems of the Dengue Virus (very nasty as you can see). This sign was right next to the security area and was unlike anything I had seen before. The other photo is the “luggage belt” where you pick up your luggage after your arrival. One side of the glass is where the airline employees unload the baggage and right on the other side of the glass is where we stand to pick it up (just a few feet away). All the locals liked to make jokes about it, so I thought I would pass it along to you.

Finally—I just wanted to mention that the people here were incredibly hospitable, engaging, friendly and very helpful during our trip. To everyone who helped make that possible, especially long time Mozilla contributor Marcio Galli, I (and Asa) say thanks!

More love from Brazilian press

UOL.com, Brazil’s largest portal, has a great article about Firefox 3. This interview also appeared on Brazilian TV.

Here is the article in English.

Also, check out the picture of Aas being interviewed:

Asa featured on cover of tech section of Brazil Journal on Firefox 3

In other exciting news, Asa was featured on the cover of the tech section of the Brazil Journal talking about Firefox 3 and our trip to Brazil.

We will work on getting it translated, but we have been told that the article was very flattering (of Mozilla and Firefox).

Mozilla in Sao Carlos (in photos)

Another incredibly successful day in Brazil– this time we were joined by longtime Mozilla developer and evangelist Marcio Galli. We spoke to packed crowds at the Federal University of Sao Carlos and the University of Sao Paulo in San Carlos, both some of the most competitive and elite schools in Brazil. We met many Firefox fans– some of whom threw a Firefox 2 launch party by creating what was supposedly the world’s largest hamburger (and then they ate it!). There was lots of great brainstorming around how to get organized in Brazil and what the first tasks/stunts/events should be.

We spend the next two days in Sao Paulo with completely packed schedules, so updates are likely to be a little less frequent. Over the course of the trip, we should speak to more than 1000 Mozilla enthusiasts explaining how to get involved spreading Firefox.

Check out all the photo’s at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/asadotzler/

More on the state of the web in Brazil

I have had a chance to type up a few more notes—here are a few more things we have learned about the Brazilian market (all based on conversations we have had with people from universities, foundations and top internet companies):

The operating system market share on one of Brazil’s top websites is:
Windows 98- 45%
Windows XP- 40%
Vista- 6%
Linux- 4%
Mac- too expensive!

When people buy personal computers in Brazil, they buy it without an operating system and then go get pirated copies of Windows (generally older versions). Actually purchasing an upgrade to Windows is very expensive for people and all the people with pirated software don’t get updated from Microsoft, so there are many security issues for users here (all the more reason to use Firefox!).

Top Dail-up ISP’s
Terra—which is backed by Telefonica (biggest telephone company in Brazil)
UOL–essentially Brazil’s AOL

Largest ADSL’s are run by telco’s
Telefonica—“Speedy”
Telemar—“Velox”
Brasil Telecom—“Turbo”
(all actually pretty equal in #’s, but largest of high speed internet connections come from ADSL)
Main cable broadband company– Netvirtua

A quick reference for the state of internet connectivity in Brazil is the US a few years back (telco’s and major media companies desperately trying to get in on this whole “internet thing” with most people still on dial up).

Globo is the largest media company in Brazil. They own TV Globo, the largest TV station, radio stations, the biggest magazines, the biggest papers and the Globo.com internet properties (5th largest portal online). They also have a stake in netvitua (largest cable broad band company) and own tons and tons of content.

Brazilian computer company Positivo claims largest share of home pc market in Brazil, with Dell and HP leading strongly in business market.

If you have anything to add (or think something is wrong), please let me know. I am trying to give real-time info, but after the trip I will be summarizing the notes for our community/partners in Brazil to edit for accuracy and thoroughness.