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Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

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Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#21

Post by kevingadd »

manishsharan wrote: post #14

what other options exist for funding this organization ? If I were to brainstorm, I would recommend that Mozilla folks start go after enterprise market; almost every bank I have consulted for uses awful and poorly made GUI application using Swing or C# and most are struggling with Mobile. Since Mozilla is crossplatform and secure , I do think there is opportunity to offer training and support for customizing and hard…

Going after the enterprise market wouldn't earn Mozilla any tangible amount of revenue.

Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#22

Post by kevingadd »

k__ wrote: post #3

How come that no other company wants to pay Mozilla? There are many out there who use their products on a daily basis.

Other companies want to pay Mozilla; Google just won the bidding war in this case. In fact, in other countries other companies do pay Mozilla (I believe they've had a partnership with Yandex for Russian users in the past)

Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#23

Post by untog »

shmerl wrote: post #16
untog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points: Mozilla is pumping out mostly user facing open source software, which will probably attract less money than, say, Red Hat. Also, it's not that no company except Google is backing them. It's that they get a huge amount of money from their search box - currently paid by Google. Microsoft might well be happy to become the default and pay just as much.

Mozilla works on some services too.

Oh, for sure. That's why I said "mostly". But the majority mindshare/publicity is for their user-facing stuff.

Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#25

Post by untog »

ebbv wrote: post #2

If I were at Mozilla my #1 priority would be fixing this situation. Google has been less and less "not evil" lately, and this is not a position that I'd feel comfortable in long term. Alternative revenue models are needed. Unfortunately, reducing costs is probably also necessary.

Alternative revenue models are needed.

Their current revenue model isn't "Google", it's "the search box on Firefox". Now, you can debate whether it is sensible to rely on the search box, but it isn't tied to Google. Microsoft or Yahoo would probably love to get there instead.

Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#26

Post by abhididdigi »

rayiner wrote: post #10
Touche wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet they get solicited all the time but there aren't many ways to make money on a web browser without ruining the user experience.

You could just sell a copy, but hey I guess I'm old fashioned thinking selling a product in exchange for money is better than selling eyeballs to advertisers.

You mean like Microsoft?

Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#27

Post by jstalin »

Mozilla looks like they're hedging their bets. Looking at the balance sheet shows that they are sitting on $240 million in cash at the end of 2012, up from $170 million in 2011. They could weather a couple of years with no Google revenue.

https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi...

Re: Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue

#30

Post by wnevets »

anon1385 wrote: post #28
wnevets wrote: post #24

You mean like how iOS was reliant on google for its default search?

Are you really seriously suggesting that income from iOS search was remotely significant to Apple's bottom line?

Why does that matter? They switched to bing, do you honestly think microsoft is paying less than google to be the default search for iOS?
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