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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

#31

Post by huxley »

untog wrote: post #12
abhididdigi wrote: post #8

I am surprised by this. Mozilla is literally pumping out good open source software and no other company except Google is backing them?

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.

Microsoft wasn't interested in paying anything near that much, nor was Yahoo, that's why talks collapsed during the negotiations.

Google does consider the search engine placement valuable but it is probably also funding Mozilla as a hedge against anti-trust lawsuits.

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

#32

Post by shooper »

saosebastiao wrote: post #5

I'm so sick of this argument about Mozilla. It is like saying a Principal Engineer at Microsoft relies on Microsof because it provides 90% of his income. Last time Mozilla's contract was up for negotiation, they caused bidding war that increased their value over the previous contract...it wasn't Google's generosity. You are a fool if you think Mozilla is beholden to Google.

I think a better argument is that Mozilla needs to diversify its revenue sources. Chrome is taking away marketshare from Firefox thanks to advertising and paying a lot to be bundled with Java, Flash, Acrobat etc. updates or just being shipped as default by the PC OEMs. It makes sense for Google because then they needn't pay out so much to Mozilla. For many non tech folks where I had replaced IE with Firefox, I now see them using Chrome, and when I asked if they installed it, they usually have no idea how it got on their computer. This is a real danger that Firefox and Mozilla face.

Not sure what's the state now but a few years ago the CEO was being paid ~400K/yr to run Mozilla Corp. For that kind of money, one would expect that Mozilla would have more diverse revenue than being a one-trick pony.

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

#33

Post by hackula1 »

saosebastiao wrote: post #5

I'm so sick of this argument about Mozilla. It is like saying a Principal Engineer at Microsoft relies on Microsof because it provides 90% of his income. Last time Mozilla's contract was up for negotiation, they caused bidding war that increased their value over the previous contract...it wasn't Google's generosity. You are a fool if you think Mozilla is beholden to Google.

> a Principal Engineer at Microsoft relies on Microsof[t] because it provides 90% of his income

I would not exactly call this hypothetical person completely independent. Sure, they can go off and find somebody else to rely on anytime they want, but they are currently relying on one company in particular.

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

#34

Post by manishsharan »

kevingadd wrote: post #21
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.

I do not understand your remark : enterprise market is traditionally viewed as very lucrative.

RedHat, Jboss , SpringFramework folks are doing remarkably well in the enterprise market though they had roots in free and opensource software movement.

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

#35

Post by sp332 »

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?

wnevets' comment didn't mention money.

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

#36

Post by wnevets »

huxley wrote: post #29
wnevets wrote: post #24

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

Except for how Apple doesn't get in excess of 90% of their income from Google.

Why does the percent of income matter? Whether its 1% or 100% Microsoft had zero problem paying to take Google's place as the default search.

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

#37

Post by mrweasel »

Building a browser is pretty complex, but on the other hand, the OpenBSD developers are building an operating system without funding from anyone but their users.

I wonder if Mozilla could survive solely on funds from their users or if it's two different worlds.

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

#38

Post by Touche »

shooper wrote: post #32
saosebastiao wrote: post #5

I'm so sick of this argument about Mozilla. It is like saying a Principal Engineer at Microsoft relies on Microsof because it provides 90% of his income. Last time Mozilla's contract was up for negotiation, they caused bidding war that increased their value over the previous contract...it wasn't Google's generosity. You are a fool if you think Mozilla is beholden to Google.

I think a better argument is that Mozilla needs to diversify its revenue sources. Chrome is taking away marketshare from Firefox thanks to advertising and paying a lot to be bundled with Java, Flash, Acrobat etc. updates or just being shipped as default by the PC OEMs. It makes sense for Google because then they needn't pay out so much to Mozilla. For many non tech folks where I had replaced IE with Firefox, I now se…

I wish I could find a "market share over time" chart but I can't. Anyways, IIRC I don't believe Chrome is still taking (much) aware from Firefox. They did for a long time but then flattened. Recently Chrome has dipped a little and Firefox is up: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/01/ie11-takes-1-49-mar...

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

#39

Post by shooper »

abhididdigi wrote: post #8

I am surprised by this. Mozilla is literally pumping out good open source software and no other company except Google is backing them?

Google isn't backing them with $300M/year because Mozilla is pumping out good open source software. They are doing it to maintain their dominance in search and keep Bing, DDG, Blekko at bay. For example, they have a similar deal with the closed source(till recently) Opera browser.

I wish Mozilla would stick to its principles and switch the default to a privacy conscious search engine like DuckDuckGo and give it a much needed boost in keyword relevance data.

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

#40

Post by deelowe »

Touche wrote: post #38
shooper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better argument is that Mozilla needs to diversify its revenue sources. Chrome is taking away marketshare from Firefox thanks to advertising and paying a lot to be bundled with Java, Flash, Acrobat etc. updates or just being shipped as default by the PC OEMs. It makes sense for Google because then they needn't pay out so much to Mozilla. For many non tech folks where I had replaced IE with Firefox, I now se…

I wish I could find a "market share over time" chart but I can't. Anyways, IIRC I don't believe Chrome is still taking (much) aware from Firefox. They did for a long time but then flattened. Recently Chrome has dipped a little and Firefox is up: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/01/ie11-takes-1-49-mar...

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