When I read that Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) website didn't officially support the world's second-largest web browser until just recently, I was stunned. The Mozilla Foundation, maker of the super-popular Firefox web browser, now commands about 19% of the global web browser market, behind Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s Internet Explorer web browser.

Yet, many (many) websites I visit (some very high-profile ones) were made for Internet Explorer only. These websites break at various points when using the Firefox web browser, mine, and millions others, favorite.

What are these Fortune 500 companies thinking? If a product has nearly 20% of any market, you darn well better pay attention to it. With more and more time being spent online instead of in front of the TV, website publishers need to recognize the value of supporting more than just the leading web browser. I can easily understand not designing a web experience for products that have lower single-digit market shares, but that's not what we're talking about here.

So, it was with disdain that I recently read that a Bank of America web support representative stating, "Please note Bank of America does not support Firefox." With email, actual workflow applications, multimedia and an entire media consumption empire existing on the web, the challenge for many websites will be to not forget the other large pieces of the pie. Ignore web browsers with growing market share at your peril, I say.

Mozilla Foundation, which develops and distributes the immensely popular Mozilla Firefox web browser, is changing leaders. Mitch Baker will step down from the CEO post and hand the reigns over to John Lilly, a Standard-trained computer businessman who sold his company to Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) before joining Mozilla in 2005.

Lilly has said that he wants to go after new business as the CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, which may cause a moment of pause in the corporate offices of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), which makes the 'Internet Explorer' web browser most of the world uses. However, Mozilla's competing Firefox web browser has gained quite a following and has slowly eroded Microsoft's web browser market share in the last three years.

So, when a successful internet entrepreneur comes to the corner office, you can bet more market and business development is not far behind. Although Mozilla has said unequivocally that it will not have an IPO to raise capital, the company is no doubt seeking to become a greater force in the web browser market. Considering there are legions of contributors to Mozilla's handful of open-source software projects that far outmass the Foundation's 150 employees, Mozilla has nowhere to go but up. To the hundreds of millions of internet-connected customers use web browsers every day, it's a market prime for the picking. Well, from Microsoft's orchards, that is.