How Do Canadian Organizations Benefit from Helping Develop the Firefox Web Browser?
Presenter(s): 
Time: 
Fri, 10/24/2014 - 15:00
Topic Area: 
Open Source
Tagline: 
I present preliminary findings of research on how Canadian organizations' involvement in Firefox development contributes to their competitiveness.
Presentation Description: 
For over 20 years, organizations from around the world have contributed human and financial resources towards developing means of accessing the Internet such as Mozilla's Firefox web browser. What do these organizations get out of such participation? In this presentation, I present preliminary findings on research, which is part of a broader research agenda into open source strategy, that is seeking to understand how the participation of Canadian organizations in Mozilla's Firefox project has contributed to their competitiveness, skills development, network, reputation, and/or growth over time. The presentation will help improve understanding from a strategic perspective how contributing to open source, not just using open source products, can make businesses more competitive and better address the needs of their stakeholders. I challenge the standard business assumption that "giving it away" is "bad for business".