Google Continues to Bankroll Mozilla

30 Comments

by Erick Schonfeld on October 23, 2007

The Mozilla Foundation (which shepherds the development of the Firefox browser) released its financial statements today for its 2006 fiscal year. Its revenues were $67 million, and 85 percent of that (or $57 million) came from the Google search box that comes as a default on every browser. Firefox is used by 120 million people worldwide. Larry Dignan has the details.

Comments

Marco - October 23rd, 2007 at 3:42 pm PDT

develop some basic program, let others continue to develop it and earn the $$$. great idea.

Paul Fabretti - October 23rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm PDT

Maybe they can now plough some of the cash into the forgotten Thunderbird. Do they even bother with developing it anymore?

Asa Dotzler - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:03 pm PDT

It’s not really “the Google search box”. It’s the Firefox search box and it contains quite a bit more than just Google.

Mozilla earns the most revenue from the Google searches because Google is the default search service for most Mozilla versions. Google is the default because that’s what the Firefox community and people using Firefox want as the default. If Yahoo was the default (as it was in Japan and some other locales,) then the bulk of Mozilla’s revenue would probably come from Yahoo.

Also included in the Firefox search box are Yahoo, Amazon, Answers, Wikipedia, and Ebay. And if that’s not enough choice for you, head over to our add-ons site and select from a much wider variety. But, if you’re still not satisfied with those options, you can grab any one of the literally 13,000+ search services available from the Mozilla Mycroft project and with just a click add those to your Firefox search box and make them the default.

- A

HottieMe - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:07 pm PDT

Open source rocks !!

Don Wilson - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:13 pm PDT

Other 15%?

Matt - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:20 pm PDT

How long until the Google buyout then. Anyone?

I give it another year at the most…

AllMyMac.com - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:30 pm PDT

@Matt:
Buyout a “Non-Profit”? They already have a vested interest in development, why would they want to buy in? Probably a better question…could they?
@Don Wilson:
GOOD QUESTION!

Asa Dotzler - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:35 pm PDT

Paul, Mozilla has just this summer made a massive increase in its investment in Thunderbird. Not only have some of our most critical people been putting months into trying to figure out how to improve things for Thunderbird, but Mozilla is also putting millions more into launching a new Mozilla Foundation subsidiary to manage the Thunderbird and Mozilla messaging project(s).

You can read more about it here.

- A

Ericson - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:37 pm PDT

So why, with gmail, yahoo mail etc, do we even need a client like thunderbird anymore?

I’ve always been a great proponent of thunderbird, but that was 2 years ago.

Justin - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:39 pm PDT

It is not bad but it should be improved

MGZ - October 23rd, 2007 at 4:53 pm PDT

Ericson: some people like standalone email programs.

BG SOUND - October 23rd, 2007 at 5:13 pm PDT

Most of browser support bgsound. Why wouldn’t Firefox support bgsound?

FG SOUND - October 23rd, 2007 at 5:27 pm PDT

Because bgsound is as lame as the blink tag. I’d rather browser vendors work on getting standardized on useful things, personally.

June - October 23rd, 2007 at 5:51 pm PDT

Agree with Ericson, I for one have not use desktop email applications at home for years. yahoo and hotmail are already offering desktop like interface, gmail has a strange but good interface also, why people still install standalone email applications?

Stephan - October 23rd, 2007 at 6:08 pm PDT

I agree with the comments about increasing support to Thunderbird. I know a lot of people say they like webmail interfaces better, but personally I find that the desktop apps are much more useful. I have several different email accounts that each have their own purpose and to be able to see whenever I have mail in any of the accounts without having to go through and check each one is extremely helpful.

Spandana - October 23rd, 2007 at 6:28 pm PDT

GOOG should buy them.. might as well.. to supplement the office suite.

Steen - October 23rd, 2007 at 6:36 pm PDT

GOOG just needs to control the board if they don’t already.

Joe P. - October 23rd, 2007 at 6:39 pm PDT

June: I use a local client because I don’t trust some third party to store all my private emails, and then give them to any asshole who asks for them. That’s why.

Sean O - October 23rd, 2007 at 7:31 pm PDT

It’s its.

Steve Ballmer - October 23rd, 2007 at 8:22 pm PDT

A lame browser, proped up by a non-entity company!
sheesh!

http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com

Your Daddy - October 23rd, 2007 at 8:40 pm PDT

Big IR fan here but I like Safari Beta 3 for Windows more than FF.

dualsub2006 - October 23rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm PDT

@ Joe P.

Got news for you. Any asshole can ask for them (and get them) if you download them to a desktop client. Even if you delete it and the provider tells you that YOU can’t get it back, there are assholes that can get it if THEY want it back.

Tyler Wright - October 23rd, 2007 at 11:47 pm PDT

Firefox sucks.

IE loads better, doesn’t switch some sites to TIMES NEW ROMAN (grrr), and it lets you use Alexa.

Firefox sucks. Long live IE.

Jaap Beetstra - October 24th, 2007 at 12:54 am PDT

@Don:
The most important are
Other search royalties: $4M
Interest: $2.1M
Gain from investments: $1.8M
Product revenue: $1.0M

(from http://www.mozi...l-statement.pdf )

LoveMyThunderbird - October 24th, 2007 at 1:41 am PDT

@ all the anti-thunderbird tontos:

You show me a web based email client that allows me to store 30GB of email from various POP accounts, plus numerous RSS feeds, send full out HTML emails, and have access to all this wherever I go, with or without an email connection, and I’ll switch right over.