A Successful Nonprofit Effort to Make the Online World Easier — and More Fun — to Navigate
Cutting-edge isn’t usually the first phrase to come to mind when nonprofit shows up in word-association exercises. But a nonprofit foundation is giving the big boys on the tech block a run for their money.
If you use Firefox to browse the Web or Thunderbird as your e-mail client, you’re the beneficiary of the innovative, intuitive mindset of the Mozilla Foundation, whose Mozilla Project developed both programs. They’re terrific, too — packed with features, easy to use, and nice to look at. And the Mozilla folks are all about open source. I’m a Firefox devotee, and were I still with a desktop e-mail client, Thunderbird would be my choice.
Speaking of T’bird, CNET’s Stephen Shankland today reported that Mozilla would be releasing version 3.0, with a new name and better searching and calendar options, later this year:
Mozilla is best known for its success with the Firefox browser, which has dented Microsoft Internet Explorer’s dominance and sparked programmers to build a rich selection of extensions. Now the group is trying to apply the formula to e-mail software. Even though many rely on Web-based services for the chore, e-mail software is still widely used, and Thunderbird could open another major beachhead for open-source software in mainstream computing.
Although Mozilla Messaging’s priority is to produce good software, not specifically to dethrone Microsoft’s dominant Outlook software, the new calendar ability makes Thunderbird a more viable competitor, particularly in corporate environments.
I’m all for Microsoft’s bottom line, but I also think it’s wicked cool that a nonprofit upstart is giving the Redmond behemoth a little something to think about at night. | 501(c)
Tags: Firefox, Microsoft, Mozilla, ThunderbirdRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Foundations, Technology
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