UK Universities and Colleges Increasingly Prefer Mozilla

According to a survey performed by the OSS Watch, a group providing advice and guidance on free and open source software to UK educational institutions, an estimated 68% of UK Universities and Colleges have adopted Mozilla's programs and open source solutions. The study has taken into consideration information from no less than 114 surveyed institutions, indicating that the Firefox browser or the entire Mozilla Application Suite have found their way onto campus desktops.

The OSS Watch Survey 2006 metrics that have accounted for the percentage of Mozilla's solutions being accepted by the educational institutions also show that Internet Explorer ranks at 100% as it is inherently present on all Windows based machines. The study concludes that the adoption of Mozilla solutions is on the rise, compared to similar findings from 2003 that credited Firefox with a 44% presence, while the OSS browser's adoption is on the edge of a discrepancy between policy and practice as its deployment rate is only partial.

"This survey shows that although open source use is on the rise, institutional engagement with the open source development community remains patchy. OSS Watch will redouble its efforts over the next two years in order to help colleges and universities work through the challenges of engagement, from contribution of code to open source business models," stated Randy Metcalfe, Manager of OSS Watch.