Mozilla announces that it has signed a new three-year agreement for Google to be the default search option in its Firefox browser. “We’re pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google,” Mozilla said in a statement. “This new agreement extends our long-term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.” That’s to say, Mozilla keeps the search engine giant as Firefox’s default search engine for at least another three years.
It’s a critical renewal for the Silicon Valley software maker, since its earlier deal with the search giant has been a major source of revenue to date. The companies said the specific terms of the commercial agreement are not being released. But, in 2010, Google contributed 84 percent of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue. Google’s contribution to Mozilla’s bottom line in 2009 was about $89 million, or 86% of the browser maker’s annual income. Mozilla declined to provide details of the new contract, citing confidentiality requirements. Later, a spokesman refused to say whether the deal was comparable to the previous agreement. “The majority of Mozilla’s revenue is generated from search functionality included in our Firefox product through all major search partners including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others,” Mozilla said at the time. “Mozilla’s reported revenues also include very important individual and corporate donations and grants as well as other forms of income from our investable assets.”
Questions about Mozilla’s dependence on Google have been raised since the latter launched its own Web browser, Chrome, in September 2008. According to Internet metrics firms StatCounter, in November 2011, Chrome owned a 25.7% share of the global browser usage market to edge into second place ahead of Firefox’s 25.2%. Both browsers — software which is used to navigate the Internet — have about 25 percent market share. Mozilla has made only minor steps to wean itself from Google. In October, the open-source organization launched a customized edition, dubbed “Firefox with Bing,” that uses Microsoft’s Bing search as the default engine.
During the past three years, Mozilla has ratcheted up its spending tremendously. The growth on the Software Development line has been eye-popping. A Bloomberg BusinessWeek story from early this month suggests that Mozilla has dramatically increased its spending in an attempt to catch up in the mobile market, where it’s well behind. Reporter Sarah Frier described Mozilla’s situation as “something of an existential crisis.” However, Mozilla has announced it will not develop Firefox for iOS devices, including the iPad, the Windows Phone 7 platform is also a nonstarter. That means the only widely used mobile platform that Mozilla supports is Android, where the company recently released a Firefox beta that’s “optimized for tablets.” Unfortunately for Mozilla, it’s an open secret that Chrome for Android is coming soon. It’s hard to imagine that Firefox for Android can make much of a toehold in an ecosystem that Google controls.
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