Analysis of Single-Browser Policy Survey
A Zona Report
Zona Research, Inc.
March 1999
Abstract:
In February, Zona Research conducted a series of in-depth interviews with individuals responsible for setting or influencing browser policy at 113 organizations, including 54% who were at large companies (over 250 users), 30% at medium-sized companies (25-249 users), and 16% who were at small companies (under 25 users). The study sought to assess the trends in browser usage in corporate environments, addressing such issues as the adoption of corporate-wide single-browser policies and the reasoning among IT professionals for adopting or not adopting single-browser policies. We measured these companies' level of aggressiveness in adopting Internet/Intranet technology for their respective businesses, the current and anticipated effect of Internet/Intranet usage on their company profit structure, and the perceived costs of maintaining multiple browsers in terms of application planning and development, creating and testing, browser and application deployment, management and updating, training, help desk costs and browser license fees. Herein are detailed findings:
Executive Summary
As companies move into the era of Intranet and Extended Intranet (Extranet) based applications, a large portion are addressing the question of whether to support one-browser or multiple browsers in those applications has prompted many to adopt a single-browser policy. In the 1999 Zona Research Survey of Corporate Browser Policies, 46% of the organizations surveyed have adopted single-browser corporate policies, 19% have adopted multiple-browser policies, and 35% have no corporate browser policy at all.
Businesses save money by supporting a single browser vs. multiple browsers.
Everyone agrees that it costs more to support multiple browsers than to support a single browser, but they fall into two distinct camps when it comes to calculating how much. Managers whose companies have adopted single-browser policies believe that about 20% of browser-related costs can be saved by adopting a single-browser policy. Managers at companies with a multiple-browser policy or no corporate browser policy believe that that figure is 8%.
Although the accumulated costs are spread over areas that include personnel time spent in creating, planning and testing applications, help desk support, user training issues, application deployment, and management and updating, single-browser vs. multiple-browser support policies have become a pure dollars and cents issue. On the average, for example, IT managers at medium-sized companies report that they spend $360 per user per year on browser-related issues.
Overall, medium-sized companies spend between $36,600 and $53,600 annually on these combinations of browser-related expenses. Small companies spend less than $38,000, and large companies spend over a quarter million. At one in seven large companies, creating and testing of Web applications alone exceeds $250,000.
Users, developers and IT managers seem satisfied with using a single browser.
In companies that have settled upon single-browser policies, the restriction of choice to a single browser does not seem to have had a negative impact upon user satisfaction. When asked about their satisfaction level with their company's single-browser policy, 75% of the users, 84% of corporate developers and 91% of the IT management group expressed satisfaction or extreme satisfaction with the policy, while the remainder returned neutral responses.
In assessing overall costs, the browser licenses themselves were the least important factor on the IT managers' list. Creating and testing costs were the most important factor, representing 27% of browser-related costs, while deployment costs, management and updating, help desk and user training costs were more or less evenly spread at between 11% and 14% each. In other words, the benefits of adoption of a single-browser policy were distributed across nearly every area of the corporate infrastructure.
In deciphering corporate behavior, we found a correlation between the level of aggressiveness with which corporations are pursuing Intranet- and Extranet (extended Intranet)-based technologies, the size of the corporation, and the perceived and anticipated net effect of the adoption of these technologies upon corporate profit. We also found a correlation between aggressive adoption of Intranet/Extranet technology and the propensity of corporations to adopt single-browser policies, as well as the level of expected cost savings in adopting corporate single-browser strategies.
Q1: Cost Differentials between Single-browser policies and Multiple-browser environments
In order to map the actual economic impact that IT managers see in supporting multiple browsers compared to a single-browser support policy, we first had to get them to assess the relative savings of a single-browser policy in each of the previously-cited task areas. We divided the reaction into two very distinct groups, those who have a single-browser policy at their company, and those who do not.
As Tables Q1A and Q1B show, there is agreement between IT managers whose companies have adopted single-browser policies and those whose have not over the amount of time, money and resources that a single-browser policy saves. Those who have adopted single-browser policies expect that, on the average, they are saving 20% of browser-related costs across the board. IT managers at companies that have NOT adopted single-browser policies agree, but to a lesser extent, claiming that on the average it costs them an additional 8% to support multiple browsers.
| Table Q1A: Overall | Single-browser policy companies | Non-Single browser policy companies |
Estimates of SAVINGS of cost and effort due to single-browser policy | Overall effect | Overall effect |
Planning and development | 20% | 8% |
Creating and testing | 23% | 11% |
Deploying | 23% | 9% |
Managing and updating | 23% | 10% |
Training | 17% | 9% |
Help Desk | 18% | 8% |
Browser license costs | 13% | 4% |
AVERAGE: | 20% | 8% |
N=113 |
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As Tables Q1A&B below indicate, there is an across-the-board perception of cost allocation in various browser-related tasks, with creating and testing of browser-related applications leading the pack. Both companies with single-browser policies and those without agree that supporting multiple browsers costs more, but they have substantial disagreements over how much more. As the detailed chart below shows, that disagreement on level permeates every browser-related function. In general, the extra cost of supporting multiple browsers are 8-12% higher when estimated by companies with single-browser policies than when estimated by companies without such policies.
| Table Q1A: | ||||||
Single-browser policy companies |
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Estimates of SAVINGS of cost and effort due to single-browser policy | No significant amount | 5% to 10% | 11% to 20% | 21%-50% | More than 50% | Overall effect |
Planning and development | 10% | 19% | 46% | 21% | 4% | 20% |
Creating and testing | 6% | 29% | 37% | 21% | 8% | 23% |
Deploying | 8% | 23% | 37% | 27% | 6% | 23% |
Managing and updating | 10% | 25% | 33% | 27% | 6% | 23% |
Training | 15% | 44% | 15% | 21% | 4% | 17% |
Help Desk | 13% | 35% | 33% | 13% | 6% | 18% |
Browser license costs | 42% | 31% | 12% | 12% | 4% | 13% |
N=52 |
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| Table Q1B: | ||||||
Companies without single-browser policies |
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Estimates of additional costs of multiple-browser usage | No significant amount | 5% to 10% | 11% to 20% | 21% to 50% | More than 50% | Overall effect |
Planning and development | 41% | 33% | 25% | 2% | 0% | 8% |
Creating and testing | 33% | 36% | 18% | 13% | 0% | 11% |
Deploying | 39% | 31% | 23% | 7% | 0% | 9% |
Managing and updating | 39% | 33% | 21% | 5% | 2% | 10% |
Training | 52% | 25% | 13% | 10% | 0% | 9% |
Help Desk | 51% | 21% | 21% | 7% | 0% | 8% |
Browser license costs | 82% | 8% | 5% | 3% | 2% | 4% |
N=61 |
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Q2: Importance of Factors in Adopting Single-Browser Policy
Copyright ©1999 Zona Research, Inc.
As Table Q2 shows, those IT managers whose companies have adopted a single-browser policy do so for a variety of factors, most of which they consider to be moderately important. Maintenance costs and deployment expenses lead a tightly-grouped pack of factors, and once again the actual cost of acquiring the browsers is the least important factor on the docket.
Q3: Impact of Multiple Browsers on Client PCs
Maintaining multiple browsers can take up an additional 50 Megabytes or so of disk space on a client desktop, soak up additional RAM to support the simultaneous running of two browsers, and require an additional amount of maintenance, such as adding security patches and updating components on the desktop system.
Table Q3 Impact of Multiple Browsers on Client PCs
| 1=No impact | 5=Heavy impact | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Maintaining client desktops (I.e., adding security patches, updating components) | 24% | 33% | 29% | 10% | 5% |
Maintaining adequate disk space | 29% | 43% | 19% | 10% | 0% |
Soaking up usable RAM space on client PCs | 33% | 38% | 24% | 5% | 0% |
N=21 |
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Copyright ©1999 Zona Research, Inc.
These factors are of concern to about one-third of the respondents surveyed, but do not phase the other two-thirds. One-quarter to one-third of the IT managers surveyed believe that the additional RAM, disk, and client desktop maintenance factors associated with maintaining multiple browsers is not a factor at all, and another sixty percent or so believe that it is of little or modest impact.
We believe that the one-third of the respondents who registered some concern are dealing with those clients that are aging PC's in the user base. Contemporary replacement PC's have benefited greatly from additional cheap RAM and disk space, so that these hardware concerns are eliminated on new deployments. The maintenance of security patches on multiple browsers transcends the hardware, as indicated by the 44% of respondents who registered moderate to heavy concern.
Q4: Satisfaction with Single-Browser Policies
In those companies that have single-browser corporate policies, 75% of the users, 84% of the corporate developers, and 91% of the IT departments are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with the policy.
| Q4 | 1=Not at all satisfied | 5=Extremely satisfied | ||||
User satisfaction with Single-Browser Policy | Mean | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
User satisfaction | 3.94 | 0% | 2% | 23% | 54% | 21% |
Corporate developer satisfaction | 4.18 | 0% | 4% | 12% | 46% | 38% |
IT group satisfaction | 4.52 | 0% | 0% | 10% | 33% | 58% |
N=52 |
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Q6: User Demand for Multiple Browsers
Copyright ©1999 Zona Research, Inc.
At companies where a single-browser policy is in effect, is there a revolution of demand waiting under the covers? Not according to our respondents. IT managers at large companies see no demand at all (1.1) for multiple browsers among their users, and at medium and small companies there is very little demand (1.9).
Q7: Utility of a Single-Browser Policy
Q7 asks IT executives whether they feel that a single browser can meet all of their users' needs, and three-quarters of the respondents say "yes." The same three-quarters say "no," not having a browser policy is not beneficial to an organization.
Q8: Adoption of Single-Browser Policy
We learn from other questions that IT managers who adopt single browser policies generally expect to realize resource savings of 10-20% in various categories of expenditure, but the breakdown of question8, which sorts out those companies that have adopted single-browser corporate policies, those which have adopted multi-browser policies, and those which have no policies at all, is particularly revealing.
Large companies have a clear preference for single-browser corporate policies, with 57% of the large company respondents indicating a single-browser policy. Only 32% of small companies and 33% of medium-sized companies have adopted single-browser policies. We believe this divergence happens because large companies, of necessity, tend to be more policy-driven in order to try to coordinate merged divisions and disparate resources. Overall, 46% of the organizations sampled have adopted single-browser policies.
Q9: Enforcement of Single-Browser Policies
Establishing a single-browser corporate policy and getting all of the departments and users in a far-flung organization to adhere to that policy are two very different factors.
Looking at Table Q9, we see that, among those 52 companies in the survey claiming to have single-browser corporate policies, about two-thirds (68%) see that policy as being regularly or strongly-enforced. None claim there is no enforcement at all, but the remaining one-third see lax or inconsistent enforcement.
Q10: Measure of aggressiveness in Intranet/Extranet technology adoption
As Table Q10 shows, about half of our survey respondents consider themselves as either aggressive or extremely aggressive in their adoption of Intranet technology, leaving the other half evenly split between medium levels of aggressiveness and non-aggressive pursuits. The largest companies tend to show more aggressive Intranet adoption, with 67% of the large company respondents considering themselves either aggressive or extremely aggressive, compared to 30% of medium-sized companies and 36% of the smaller companies.
Table Q10 Compared to other businesses within your industry, how aggressive has, or will your company be, in the adoption of Intranet or Extranet-based technologies? By Intranet applications, we mean those which use Web technology strictly within your own corporate firewalls and infrastructure. By extended Intranets (Extranets), we mean those applications which use the Internet to cross boundaries between multiple organizations.
| 1 = No impact | 5 = Extremely positive impact | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Intranet-based technologies | 11% | 15% | 24% | 29% | 21% |
Large | 5% | 9% | 9% | 36% | 31% |
Medium | 18% | 26% | 26% | 24% | 6% |
Small | 18% | 18% | 29% | 18% | 18% |
Extranet-based technologies | 22% | 18% | 21% | 23% | 16% |
Large | 19% | 16% | 21% | 24% | 21% |
Medium | 25% | 25% | 19% | 22% | 9% |
Small | 28% | 17% | 22% | 22% | 11% |
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N=113 |
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Copyright ©1999 Zona Research, Inc.
Extranets, as one might expect, are a step or two behind Intranets on the adoption curve, with 39% of the companies considering themselves to be aggressively or extremely aggressively adopting the technology. Forty percent claim little or no aggression in the adoption of Extranets, compared to 26% with little vigor in the adoption of Intranet technology.
It is easy to characterize the falloff here. Extranets involve inter-company cooperation and the crossing of information beyond corporate firewalls, and that requires more ambition, more coordination between IT departments, and more caution in regard to the vulnerability and security of data selection, access, and transmission. If anything, the 39% overall aggression level marked here represents the first good look at the adoption of a third wave of Internet technology. It indicates that companies are stepping past the immediate benefits of internal and external document and information exchange, and focusing upon overall, inter-company value chain tightening through Extranet applications. We see the difference between Intranet and Extranet technology adoption aggressiveness as a time displacement between two waves of Internet technology, and estimate the peak-to-peak distance between the waves to be about 12 months.
Q11: Impact on business profitability
Where there is a cause, there is an effect. Table Q11 represents the IT managers' view of the goal line, where Table Q10 shows their means of achieving a succession of first downs on their way to the goal line. We see the difference between the technology adoption aggressiveness marked in Table Q10 and the expected profitability impact expressed in Table Q11 as a time line displacement. Profitability impact does not happen the day that an IT department decides upon a technology adoption. It happens much later, after applications have been written, deployments made, and human habits and work processes migrated to take advantage of the new technology. Table Q11 reflects the profitability impact perceived over the next one to three years of Internet/Extranet technology adoption. It shows that 37% consider Intranet technology as having a very positive impact on their company's profitability over the next three year, while 45% believe the Extranets will have a very positive impact on company profitability.
Table Q11 Thinking of the next 1 to 3 years, please rate the expected impact on your businesses' profitability by using Intranet or Extranet technologies.
| 1 = No impact | 5 = Extremely positive impact | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Intranet-based technologies | 14% | 17% | 32% | 27% | 10% |
Large | 6% | 17% | 30% | 36% | 11% |
Medium | 23% | 23% | 35% | 16% | 3% |
Small | 29% | 7% | 29% | 14% | 21% |
Extranet-based technologies | 14% | 17% | 25% | 28% | 17% |
Large | 13% | 15% | 26% | 30% | 15% |
Medium | 10% | 21% | 31% | 24% | 14% |
Small | 21% | 14% | 7% | 29% | 29% |
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N=113; multiple responses allowed |
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We believe it is worth noting here the difference in perceived profitability impact between Intranets and Extranets. Overall, 7% more of the respondents expect high profitability impact from Extranets than Intranets, even though 11% more companies are aggressively pursuing Intranet technology than Extranet. Again, it goes back to time line. Intranet technologies get implemented first as a natural progression of events, even though there may be more profit dollars at stake in Extranet applications.
Looking deeper, we see different behavior patterns among large, medium and small companies. Small companies see Extranets as tickets to big commerce, with 58% seeing Extranets as having a high impact on profitability over the next one to three years. This compares with 45% for large companies and 38% for medium-sized companies.
Conversely, the large Intranets at large companies can be viewed as a potential source for proportionately larger savings, and hence the 47% high profitability impact registered by large company IT executives compared to 35% registered by small companies.
Medium-sized companies appear to be the most timid of the three company groups, registering the least aggressiveness in adoption of both Intranet and Extranet technology, and the lowest expectations of profitability impact from both types of technologies. This may be due to an "in-between" effect, where the economies of scale do not come into play as much for medium-sized company Intranets as for large ones, and the medium-sized company marketing channels are such that the companies do not expect to see as big a proportional boost from Extranets and E-commerce as smaller companies.
What It All Means
The overall trend that this study reveals is that the browser has matured to the point where standardization of deployment, application design and user training is perceived by IT managers as larger factors than individual feature differences between the browsers themselves. By implementing corporate policies calling for the use of a single browser, IT managers expect to save up to 20% across the board on the many cost factors associated with browser-based applications.
In some cases, such as government agencies with applications that interface with the general public, the implementation of a single-browser policy is not feasible. In others, including large extranets driven by a purchasing company, the adoption of a single-browser policy becomes simply a matter of practical business for the supplying companies.
Copyright © 1999 Zona Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written consent. The information and statistical data contained herein have been obtained from sources that we believe to be reliable, but are not warranted by us. We do not undertake to advise you as to any changes in the data or our views. Zona Research, Inc. and its affiliates and partners, or members of their families, may perform services for, and/or engage in business with, and/or hold equity positions in one or more of the companies referred to in this document, or their competitors. Zona Research, Inc. shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.