My Kingdom for Case Studies
I have been engaged in running skirmishes with my IT department at work, with regards to their current "Standard" Operating Environment, which uses IE6 and/or IE7 as the browser, and using Firefox instead.
They have, in a half-hearted and not-entirely-thought-out fashion, trialled FrontMotion Firefox (with auto-update locked down, along with alot of the preference panel), and of course the results have been less than flattering.
Their eternal defences are "We have a support agreement with Microsoft, who support IE. Firefox does not offer a similar support structure.". Essentially translating to (in my opinion) "We're scared of change. Leave us alone."
Has anyone every written up a case study for migrating a business from IE to Firefox? Something detailing the benefits, costs, risks, etc.? It's hard to convince a company the size of my employer (>10K employees) to be the first to try something without showing at least something of an example that this idea will work.
The eternal struggle - "If something is free, it must be worthless."
Luddites.
Re: My Kingdom for Case Studies
Keep in mind in big enterprises you might have to take it one small step at a time.
Have you considered a case study for ensuring internal applications work well in Firefox (regardless if it is actually used internally).I think it would be easier to make a case for that because you never know when an internal application will be turned around and placed publicly on the Internet. Also with a company like that you might have employees connecting via VPN to the corporate network with home computers, and many people use Macs and such for home computers.
Or perhaps make a case that all IT people have Firefox on their computers - for development, testing, and a variety of reasons. (Or is this place enlightened enough that this is already the case?)
Personally I laugh when people say that IE is "supported". IE 6 went for so insanely long without an update, and IE 7 is still so technologically backwards. If your company has so called "support contracts" for this then you aren't getting your moneys worth. Consider some free open source hippies are cranking out a generally better product... Microsoft should be ashamed.
I wish there were some way a company could sign some big fancy contract for "support" with Mozilla.org and dish over a truckload of money for those warm fuzzy feelings Pointy Haired Bosses get from those things. (Is there a way?) This might even help focus development on more enterprise specific features that need addressing.
Anyway, not exactly a case study, but this document: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/2306 highlights the potential advantages of using Firefox in a company.