Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#2What's actually being paid for, here?
It could be the case that having Google as the default in Firefox will pay for itself through advertising. Anyone have any feel for how likely that is?
If it isn't, is it an attempt to buy good will? Trying to gain some leverage over Mozilla when it comes to taking sides in the standards war?
Or just the idea that any time Firefox gains a user is a time that Safari or IE isn't gaining that user, and that any marginal hits to the adoption of Chrome are disproportionately compensated by hits to the adoption of competing browsers?
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#3What's actually being paid for, here? It could be the case that having Google as the default in Firefox will pay for itself through advertising. Anyone have any feel for how likely that is? If it isn't, is it an attempt to buy good will? Trying to gain some leverage over Mozilla when it comes to taking sides in the standards war? Or just the idea that any time Firefox gains a user is a time that Safari or IE isn't ga…
> What's actually being paid for, here?
The same as with Google's previous deals with Mozilla, Opera, etc.
By being the default search engine, Google gets more prominent placement in the browser. Were Google to no longer be the default in Firefox, some users would use alternatives to Google - either because they just leave the non-Google default because it is good enough, or because they are exposed for the first time to the alternatives, and they find they like them - all of which Google wants to prevent at all costs.
Another way to look at this is that there were some estimates thrown around during the Flock days of how much advertising revenue a browser generates for a search engine (this was Flock's proposed business model). I think I remember $1-2 per user per year. That should actually be higher today, assuming in the ensuing years search engines have gotten better at monetizing traffic which seems reasonable. Given that, $300M sounds about right given the amount of users Firefox has - apparently Firefox was receiving below market value before.
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#4What's actually being paid for, here? It could be the case that having Google as the default in Firefox will pay for itself through advertising. Anyone have any feel for how likely that is? If it isn't, is it an attempt to buy good will? Trying to gain some leverage over Mozilla when it comes to taking sides in the standards war? Or just the idea that any time Firefox gains a user is a time that Safari or IE isn't ga…
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Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#5What's actually being paid for, here? It could be the case that having Google as the default in Firefox will pay for itself through advertising. Anyone have any feel for how likely that is? If it isn't, is it an attempt to buy good will? Trying to gain some leverage over Mozilla when it comes to taking sides in the standards war? Or just the idea that any time Firefox gains a user is a time that Safari or IE isn't ga…
>Anyone have any feel for how likely that is?
As a rough napkin calculation, Firefox has 25% of the market share. So, roughly, 25% of Google's revenue comes from FF users. That's ~ $7.5BB annually. Now, as to how many of those users would manually choose to use Google for search, I don't think anyone can say for sure (although I'm sure Google has made a good estimate). Suffice to say, Google clearly sees it as worth their while to pony up and keep those users directed towards them by default.
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#6The dynamics behind the deal are interesting. Google probably paid just enough to outbid Bing, the second highest bidder. Or Firefox played a great hand of poker with Google. In either case it should trouble Mozilla that they are dependent on not only Google, but Bing (by extension) for the majority of their revenue.
Finding a sustainable way to reduce reliance on these companies should be the #1 job of the Mozilla business team in the next 3 years, before the deal comes up for renewal.
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#7The dynamics behind the deal are interesting. Google probably paid just enough to outbid Bing, the second highest bidder. Or Firefox played a great hand of poker with Google. In either case it should trouble Mozilla that they are dependent on not only Google, but Bing (by extension) for the majority of their revenue. Finding a sustainable way to reduce reliance on these companies should be the #1 job of the Mozilla b…
I'm sure Mozilla feels very precarious getting such a huge chunk of money from a single source. But:
- Mozilla isn't a company, it's a non-profit (this deal was done by Mozilla Corp, yes, but that's a wholly owned branch of the foundation). Reducing their reliance on Google for cash is never going to be Mozilla's aim as a whole.
- Three years is a hell of a long time. When the last deal was negotiated, there was no Bing, and no Chrome. The world was a very different place. No matter how good their strategy is, it's going to be a terrible one for the world in 3 years time.
- The interests of the Mozilla foundation and Google are broadly aligned - they both care about an open, free web. That's a rare thing to find in large industry players these days.
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#8The dynamics behind the deal are interesting. Google probably paid just enough to outbid Bing, the second highest bidder. Or Firefox played a great hand of poker with Google. In either case it should trouble Mozilla that they are dependent on not only Google, but Bing (by extension) for the majority of their revenue. Finding a sustainable way to reduce reliance on these companies should be the #1 job of the Mozilla b…
Actually I think it is looking more sustainable now that bing has high interest in the position as well. As long as Firefox holds a market share similar to its current one and bing holds its market share to keep ms interested in pushing it the decent sized deals should continue and probably grow.
What would to suggest as an alternate revenue source?
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#9What's actually being paid for, here? It could be the case that having Google as the default in Firefox will pay for itself through advertising. Anyone have any feel for how likely that is? If it isn't, is it an attempt to buy good will? Trying to gain some leverage over Mozilla when it comes to taking sides in the standards war? Or just the idea that any time Firefox gains a user is a time that Safari or IE isn't ga…
> What's actually being paid for, here?
For this - http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/7109/googlevy.png
Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
#10The dynamics behind the deal are interesting. Google probably paid just enough to outbid Bing, the second highest bidder. Or Firefox played a great hand of poker with Google. In either case it should trouble Mozilla that they are dependent on not only Google, but Bing (by extension) for the majority of their revenue. Finding a sustainable way to reduce reliance on these companies should be the #1 job of the Mozilla b…
I'm sure Mozilla feels very precarious getting such a huge chunk of money from a single source. But: - Mozilla isn't a company, it's a non-profit (this deal was done by Mozilla Corp, yes, but that's a wholly owned branch of the foundation). Reducing their reliance on Google for cash is never going to be Mozilla's aim as a whole. - Three years is a hell of a long time. When the last deal was negotiated, there was no B…
Your right that for Google whether a user is using Chrome or using Firefox with Google Search it shouldn't matter much on the bottom line and they don't have to worry too much about feature support from Firefox as they are quick to propose/ adopt standards.