Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome Represent 2-Pronged Attack on Microsoft
Update: Notes Mozilla comprises non-profit foundation and for-profit corporation. Bloggers are wielding truncheons over the news that a) Mozilla is leaning more heavily than ever on Google for cash and b) the Internal Revenue Service is auditing Mozilla for it. The furor began yesterday, Nov. 19, after the Mozilla said $66 million of the $75.1 million in its 2007 sales (for the non-profit foundation and for-profit corporation) came from Google. (PDF) That means 88 percent of Mozilla's funds come from Google, which pays Mozilla to have Google be the default search engine in its Firefox browser. As TechCrunch points out, Google and Mozilla have extended this arrangement through November 2011, so how much of Mozilla's revenue will Google be ponying up by then? Because of Google's growing financial support, the IRS is now poring over Mozilla's books. You can have a field day with this one, laughing at how Mozilla presents itself officially as part non-profit and part for-profit when it appears to be another business of Google. What's bothering me is the broader question of what Google has designed for Mozilla beyond 2011. See, Google in September launched its own Web browser, Chrome. Imagine the financial possibilities gleaned from information the world's leading search engine can harvest with a Web browser it controls. That's the kind of weapon Chrome can be for Google. As Marc Andreessen can tell you, you don't launch a Web browser unless you are determined to be a major gateway for Internet users all over the world. That means going through Microsoft Internet Explorer, which blew Andreessen's Netscape out of the water. Let's suppose Google wants to usurp control of the browser market. The ascendance of Mozilla Firefox, under the financial aegis of Google, has made the idea of challenging IE somewhat more probable. In a handful of years, Mozilla has done what no other browser rival has done: taken share from IE. Firefox is now at 20 percent, with IE at around 71 percent. You would think Google would let Mozilla continue to take share from Microsoft with its money (meanwhile reaping the amazing traffic rewards of hosting its search box on the world's second most popular browser). At the current rate, that could take on the order of 20 years. The emergence of Chrome means Google either wants to levy a two-headed browser attack against Microsoft or is using Firefox as a proxy until Chrome begins to gain share the way Mozilla has. Chrome to me is evidence that Google is not content to wait 20 years to capture the browser mantle from IE, which was gasping for air until IE 7 came along (ironically, Microsoft said IE 8 is delayed until 2009). If Chrome, which currently accounts for only .74 percent of browser users, according to Net Applications, languishes, expect Google to continue to support Mozilla, and even exert more control over Mozilla to attack Microsoft. That could be tricky because it would alienate a lot of hard-core open-source lovers who despise Google the way they despised Microsoft when it was a bigger threat. Where the Web is concerned, Google is now the bigger threat. If Chrome use spikes and soars over the next few years, expect Google to ditch Firefox to go after Microsoft in one-on-one combat. But for now, I see Google as attacking Microsoft both by helping Firefox flourish under Mozilla and by fostering its own Chrome strategy. Another point to consider: Does Google really want to take the browser market outright from Microsoft, which is almost as daunting a prospect as Microsoft trying to take the search mantle from Google? Or are Google's machinations in the browser world just another distraction to keep Microsoft from gaining in search? Remember, some people feel Google Apps is merely a distraction for Microsoft. If all of this browser play is just a distraction to keep Microsoft at bay in search, it's a testament to Google's sneaky, patient resolve as a combat strategist. But that doesn't mean it will pay off. There is no endgame to this chess match in sight, but the role of Gatekeeper of the Web is at stake. |
Comments (9)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Posted by LiquidGravity | November 20, 2008 1:58 PM
Non profit means someone else is paying the bills and I make no money. So Google pays Mozilla's bills... what of it? You do enjiy the superior browsing experience that is Firefox do you not? All that superior costs money. Open source does not mean free. It means non-proprietary; i.e. (so to speak...) it means you are free to MODIFY the code.
Posted by Picaro | November 20, 2008 2:37 PM
It's an interesting observation. But I don't really agree with what you said. Your observation distorts the fact that Mozilla/Netscape exists long before Google is even there. Google didn't fund Mozilla.
Google pays them to be the default search engine is toally fine which is how business works. This is especailly true when Google started as they need to started somewhere and Mozilla was the only guy there other than IE.
Mozilla/Netscape really didn't have a vision on search engine business. After so many years, they still didn't see it as an opportunity. They are the one that more suitbale than anyone else to develop and sell a good search engine years ago.
Posted by voyager | November 20, 2008 2:49 PM
So, should the IRS also go after every non-profit endowment out there? Perhaps they should also go after the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation? I'm sure that non-profit gets most of its money from one place. It's interesting to see how the gov't is going after google these days for lesser things than what microsoft does. MS can have over 90% of the desktop market, but google can't have more than 70% of search ad revenue? I wonder how many senators and regulators MS is paying these days. Reminds me of how PanAm went after Howard Hughes with their bought and paid for senator (every major company owned a few senators).
Interesting how you consider google the greater evil. Just because microsoft has been blundering lately (well, they always blunder with software and innovation, now strategically as well) does not mean they are not dangerous. That would be like trusting russia to be a close friend and ally since they haven't been the soviet union for years.
Posted by Gabriel | November 20, 2008 6:23 PM
Clint, I think you're misinformed or confused about Mozilla's search revenue. (Or maybe you're just sensationalizing for traffic?)
I said basically the same thing at your colleague's equally stupid blog post and it bears repeating here.
Mozilla isn't dependent on Google search revenue. Mozilla is, (and it's a bit concerning, but not terribly so,) dependent on the search advertising marketplace that most of the web is dependent upon.
Any search provider would, (and others besides Google do,) pay for traffic that Firefox generates for them. Google is the lion's share of Mozilla's revenue not because they pay more to Mozilla for searches than the other providers, but because there are a whole lot more searches to pay for.
That's because Google is the default. If, for example, Yahoo was the default, it would be the lion's share of Mozilla's revenue.
It's not about Google and it never has been. It's about search advertising and the fact that _any_ search provider is not just willing, but thrilled to pay reasonable prices for for _any_ search traffic they can get.
I know this can be a bit confusing, but it's not rocket science and as you're paid to learn about things and help explain them to others, I'd expect a little more from you. Because, for whatever reason, you've failed to explain this honestly to your readers, let me take a crack at it.
A lot of your readers have blogs so I'll explain it on those terms. It's quite a good analog, actually.
If you have a blog and you run Google AdSense, Google pays you for the traffic you send them. That makes you "dangerously dependent on Google's money" but there's nothing to stop you from moving to Microsoft's or Yahoo's or some other ad platform. So you're not really dependent on Google so much as you're dependent on the basic text or banner advertising marketplace.
Now, you might decided to diversify because you want your readers to see more than one kind of ad or because different ad platforms offer different features so you add, say, BlogAds ads to your blog. But, you keep Google at the top banner spot because it's the most relevant content to must of your users and it's not all Flash-y and probably won't tick them off as much. Now you've got most of your ad click revenue coming from that Google banner at the top but you've got some other clicks on the BlogAds banner in the sidebar below the fold.
Now you've got diversity, but you're still dependent on the same basic marketplace.
You could rotate the ad providers, putting AdSense below the fold and BlogAds up in that top spot and you can bet your revenue proportions would change but you're basically still in the same place, dependent on advertising.
That's basically the Mozilla situation. Mozilla provides a variety of search services driving traffic to a variety of search providers and deriving revenue from those transactions. Google is the search service at the top of the page (the default in Firefox) and Yahoo and Ebay and Amazon and others are tucked under fold (alternative services listed in the search menu.)
If you'd actually tried to understand how search and revenue really work at Mozilla, you'd be a lot less likely to pass off your own confusion and and mis-information to your readers.
If you see informing people about actual facts as part of your job, perhaps you'll do a bit more research before tossing off the next column.
Posted by Asa Dotzler | November 20, 2008 7:15 PM
Clint-
Why would Google discontinue the support of FF if they're getting what they want (search referrals)?
Explorer isn't going anywhere so wouldn't Google want Chrome's market share + Firefox to drive their search.
Posted by Dan | November 20, 2008 8:06 PM
The old saying used to be that Microsoft in terms of data wanted to control the spigot and Oracle wanted the reservoir, well now it looks like Google is gunning for the next generation of both.
Posted by Steve Pardee | November 21, 2008 1:22 PM
Don't count Opera out of the mix, and Apple has tossed Safari into the ring as well. IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, SeaMonkey, There's more browsers available than evah! The browser war has heated up. GOOD!
Posted by John Hawklyn | November 25, 2008 2:50 PM
There is a FREE version of the Chrome Code by a german company. but without googleupdater, with ad-blocking, and without a number of privacy invading settings:
It is called:
SRWare Iron
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
Posted by joe | November 28, 2008 9:49 PM