We reported yesterday on speculation about the upcoming version of Autodesk MapGuide supporting Firefox, the popular open source web browser. Today I received information from Autodesk Infrastructure Division PR Manager Cassie Stevenson, as given to her from the MapGuide product management team:
Autodesk MapGuide Viewer is available for Windows, Macintosh and Unix platforms running Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers.
The Viewer gives users on various platforms that ability to view and use maps and spatial information on a MapGuide site. It is available as both an ActiveX Control (to run within Microsoft IE and compatible browsers) and a Java version (to run on Sun, Macintosh, and other platforms)
Browser Downloads:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=5303526
System Requirements and Supported Platforms:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=2995759
I believe that Mozilla’s support for ActiveX allows users of the Firefox browser to access MapGuide sites using the ActiveX control.
Putting our report together with this, I don't think there's any need to read between the lines. Autodesk offers a minimal level of support for non-Internet Explorer browsers, by supporting Java. Going forward, there's no need to extend this support further. Also, we need to note the distinction between the content creator's development environment (MapGuide, in Windows) and the content consumer's viewing environment (Windows, Macintosh, or Unix/Linux web browsers). Part of the original speculation that we passed along confused the development environment with the consuming environment.
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