Does Mozilla not make enough money to sustain long term investments?
"Mozilla and Google are expected to extend their current search deal for another three years, multiple sources have told ZDNet."
"Terms of the new deal were leaked to this reporter after Mozilla announced plans to lay off more than 250 employees on Wednesday".
"Mozilla officials are expected to announce the search deal's extension later this fall, in November".
And, note, that deal was only a 4 year deal from 2017-2021 [1]. It's not like a decades-old source of revenue that's dried up.
And even though the deal is expiring, they've had deals before (yahoo etc), and will certainly have more in the future.
1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/mozillas-recor...
2: https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...
"Approximately 91% and 93% of Mozilla’s royalty revenues were derived from these contracts for 2018 and 2017, respectively, with receivables from these contracts representing approximately 75% and 79% of the December 31, 2018 and 2017 outstanding receivables, respectively."
Since for 2018 'Royalties' income was about 430 million, and reports are[2] that the deal was 300 million per year from Google, it's still a massive chunk of Mozilla's operating income, but you're right, it's not 90%. It's more like two thirds of their revenue coming from their market-dominant direct competitor.
Also note that while this specific contract is a four-year deal, Google had been paying Mozilla millions even before then; in 2006 most of Mozilla's money came from Google (note the source is a now-deleted blog post from the current CEO of Mozilla)[3]. It is indeed a decades-old source of revenue, but it remains to be seen if it's dried up; word is they're renewing the contract, but we'll have to wait for Mozilla's next financial report to get more information.
1- https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201...
2- http://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almos...
3- https://www.cnet.com/news/a-dangerous-conflict-of-interest-b...
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/08/13/mozilla...
I can imagine that Google is somewhat interested in keeping Firefox alive as an independent browser though, just to ward off monopoly issues.
Yes, there are plenty of Chromium reskins, but Firefox is the only other remaining full, cross-platform browser engine.
I think they were using the funding excuse as a way to cut staff without looking like bad guys. Reality is they were already deep in talks with Google on resigning and did the job cuts before finalizing.
They're probably doomed if the exact correct choices aren't made, I'm in that unpopular crowd that believes they should find a way to graft Firefox's presentation and features on top of Chromium to save on Gecko maintenance costs, and then continue to monetize with side products like their VPN and Rust (consulting). They should sell Pocket.
Marketshare gains will take time, that's a long hard road but it'll be based on features and privacy. If Microsoft couldn't hold off Chromium with EdgeHTML, then a smaller player won't be able to. There's still Webkit if de facto standards are a worry. Mozilla isn't the well-positioned, deep-pocketed player that should be offering choice in the rendering engine market.
"Take our terms or you'll have to lay off people!" "Ha Ha. Hold my beer"
:)
See the public numbers here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
under Combined income of Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation
For the same reason Microsoft saved Apple: to prevent anti-trust inquiries