Firefox: when Google dependence becomes a problem

Firefox loses market share and thus the interest in search engines, only real sources of revenue for the publisher Mozilla, donations are minority ...


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The Mozilla Foundation has released the results of its fiscal year 2010, and they are rising. $ 123.2 million in sales were generated by the publisher of the Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client, an annual increase of 18%. On the expenditure side, Mozilla has a lot invested as they went from 61.2 million to $ 87.3 million. But it could not last.

The question often repeated the sources of revenue for Mozilla. How Firefox earns there money? Mainly through partnerships with search engines that account for 98% of income received by the foundation. At this level, it is Google that is most important, the money he pays to the Mozilla Foundation to appear as a search engine built into the browser representing 64% of its turnover.

Dependence disturbing, especially since the contract between Mozilla Google is nearing its end, and there is high chance that it be renegotiated downward when it was renewed. And for good reason, in the meantime Google has launched its own browser, Chrome, which has rapidly become an important market for Internet browsers, capitalizing 23.6% market share worldwide to date, threatening and Firefox 26 , 8% (source: StatCounter). At this rate, Chrome could surpass Firefox in the next few months.

The redesign process exits Firefox stick to the frantic pace of Chrome that has slowed his fall, but failed to stop bleeding. Now if Google and other search engines decide to pay less than the Mozilla Foundation, it will have even less means to fight, and could therefore fall into a vicious circle problem.

The Mozilla Foundation remains optimistic, saying that "partnerships with search engines remain a strong revenue generator." Mozilla also has a lot on the mobile sector, with the variation of Firefox. A market of increasingly strategic part of which is fighting Mozilla. Indeed, if the foundation is trying to push Firefox on Android, the mobile browser is not yet available on Windows or iOS Phone.

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