Paycom has joined a growing list of supporters that are throwing their weight behind a Firefox campaign to buy a full-page ad in the New York Times, a move that will mark the first-ever national print ad for an open-source product.
Counting the days before its November launch of Firefox 1.0, parent company Mozilla Foundation has put out the call to the Internet community through its "SpreadFirefox" campaign by offering supporters the option of purchasing a business, student, family, or individual donation, which go for as little as $30.
According to representatives from Mozilla, the advertisement in the New York Times will feature the names of at least 2,500 donors. The campaign will be active for one more day, Mozilla said, and so far 8,859 names are attached to the push to get Firefox into the public eye.
According to Paycom's Chief Technology Officer Joel Hall, Paycom operates its entire infrastructure almost entirely on open-source software.
"We have always felt compelled to give back to the community of programmers who've helped develop code for users everywhere," Hall said in a statement. "For years Paycom has supported many open-source projects through financial contributions to developers/projects, by donating hardware, submitting bug-fixes, and by giving feedback. We believe the 'SpreadFirefox campaign' is worthy of our support to further the efforts of open source and to bring attention to the mainstream."
Hall would not comment on how much Paycom had donated, but said that the amount pales in comparison to the value his company has received from using the Firefox browser.
After launching a beta version in July, Firefox has been well received as a less expensive and more functional alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which had fallen from grace over the past year because of high costs and a host of crippling viruses.
Within the first two days of its beta release, Mozilla claimed that more than 1 million users downloaded the Firefox browser, and as of Oct. 28, the company registered almost 7 million downloads.
Open-source systems and platforms have long been synonymous with the adult industry, which turned to open source as a less expensive and more flexible alternative to commercial products, mainly dominated by Microsoft.
At the dawning of the online adult industry in the mid-nineties, a majority of upstart adult companies chose to go with MySQL, Linux, Unix and PHP, rather then pay the daunting licensing fees posed by Microsoft and others.
Paycom's donation stands alongside Portent Interactive, Abebooks.com, Worldpac, Zetaii.net, UOL, Adapt A/S, Smugmug.com and Steyla Technologies, to name a few.
"Firefox in particular is a much-needed breath of fresh air at a time when most people thought that the browser wars were over and browser development had stagnated," Hall said. "We believe Firefox in particular is an excellent browser because of its security, extensibility/openness (it has a vibrant theme and plug-in developer community behind it), and speed."
There is recent speculation that search engine Google is considering a partnership with Firefox, on the heels of widespread rumors that the search king was considering launching its own browser.
Part of Mozilla's marketing strategy for Firebox is for content and technology companies to develop their own branded versions of the open-source browser.
Speculation about a Google browser began when the company registered the Gbrowser.com domain in April.
Google was not available to confirm or deny any relationship with Mozilla.