Microsoft backs Firefox shocker

In a concession to the open source software paradigm, Microsoft has added support for the Mozilla Firefox browser to its MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) Wiki, company officials are reporting this week.

Currently in a beta phase, the Wiki enables customers to contribute to Microsoft's developer documentation. It had been optimized only for Microsoft's own Internet Explorer browser, which disappointed some users.

"First, those who were initially dismayed by the lack of Firefox support should be happy to find that MSDN Wiki now supports Firefox for browsing and editing," said Microsoft's Rob Caron, a content architect for Visual Studio 2005 Team System, in his blog.

"We always planned to support Firefox on MSDN Wiki," said Jaye Roxe, Microsoft lead product manager for Visual Studio, in an e-mail statement forwarded by a Microsoft representative. "Due to resource and time constraints, Microsoft initially optimized for the browser that our logs indicated is most commonly used on our sites. However, in the long run, we wanted to ensure that our content was available to the widest scope of Web users. Since the initial release, we've been working hard to expand options for contributing to MSDN Wiki by adding support for Firefox."

Microsoft has not yet set a date for availability of the general-release version of MSDN Wiki. In another new enhancement to the Wiki, Microsoft is enabling subscriptions to RSS feeds on a per-contributor basis, in which subscribers are notified of contributions from specific persons.

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