Loading of Microsoft Applications on Ubuntu

[Preston Hagar]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 4:34 PM, marc <gmane at auxbuss.com> wrote:
> I simply haven't fallen over this for more than a decade -
> I understand your request, but I have to ask: Why?
>
> Best,
> Marc
>
I work as an IT Guy/Programmer for a real estate company in Fort
Worth, TX.  Two examples of sites where IE is required come to the top
of my mind:

The first is the web-based configuration of our Mitel IP phone system
we have.  The only real way to configure it is through the web-based
system and it only works in IE (no matter what User Agents, etc., you
use in Firefox).  The company that built the phone system, Mitel, will
only talk to third-party "authorized vendors", so I can't complain
directly.  I have complained to our vendor, who have in turn
complained to Mitel, but it has fallen on mostly deaf ears.  You might
could say that we shouldn't use Mitel products, which we might not in
the future, but a phone system is a major investment and since we only
acquired our current system about 3 years ago, it isn't feasible to
change any time soon (especially just so I can manage it through
Firefox instead of IE)

The second is the website used by our real estate agents to search for
listings and upload them to the local MLS (multiple listing service)
database.  It has an ActiveX control that only works in IE.  This is
really dumb and I have complained about this as well, but
unfortunately our board uses MarketLinx, which created the web app, is
under contract and is unlikely to change anytime soon.  MarketLinx is
actually one of the largest providers of MLS services in the US, so
this is likely a common problem for real estate agents throughout the
country.

A third reasoning for needing IE would be web development.  I can't
tell you how many times I have had a standards compliant webpage
created that looks great in Firefox only to open it in IE and find the
whole thing falls apart.  Since IE still has at least 70% market share
(depending on the stats you look at, 89.6% on my companies website)
any business site needs to look good in IE.  There are services on the
web that will do it for you, but I think it is easier to just have an
IE install available for myself.

If I tried, I could probably think of more sites, but typically it is
some either industry specific or internal site that was written a
while back and isn't updated because the financial reasoning isn't
there.  I just thought I would post since everytime I see the OPs
question, I always see several responses of people saying that there
shouldn't be any IE only sites anymore and that if they come across
one, they should just switch providers/banks/websites/etc.  I just
thought I would provide two quick examples, where switching isn't an
option (high cost of changing phone systems, and the ability to list
and sell homes in D/FW).

Also, just for reference, I have a Windows XP virtual box instance
with IE install that I use to access the IE only sites I need and test
web pages I develop in IE.

Preston