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Why Firefox's future lies in Google's hands

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 19 Jan 2010 at 14:14

Shaver remains confident that Mozilla is up to the challenge. “We see our mission as extending beyond the browser,” he said. “The web experience is about more than ‘just’ the technologies and features of browsers, and you can see that in our Mozilla Labs projects such as Weave – how our thinking also reaches beyond a piece of desktop or mobile client software.”

Yet, it seems the challenges facing Mozilla in the next five years are even greater than those that greeted Firefox when it arrived on the market in 2004. And that’s assuming the foundation still exists to meet them, with analysts speculating that should Mozilla falter, it could even be vulnerable to a takeover, with Google heading the queue of potential suitors.

“The foundation now has more time to get its act together in a market that, owing to Chrome, could become not just more competitive but also more open-source browser friendly,” notes Ovum’s open-source research director, Laurent Lachal. “Eventually, Chrome and Firefox could converge, but currently two strong companies have more chance against Microsoft than one.”

Mozilla will have to pray that Google shares that view.

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User comments

5? I've been using it as my main browser for nearly a decade! :-S

By big_D on 19 Jan 2010

5 years since the version 1 release?

By james016 on 20 Jan 2010

Versions 1.0 was released on the 9th of November 2004.

Version 0.1 came out in 2002 so I'd be surprised if you've been using it for almost a decade. Are you perhaps thinking of the Mozilla Suite? I was using that before I switched to Firefox 2.

By peterm2k on 20 Jan 2010

NetApplications, with its limited

and USA-biased network, seems to consistently underestimate Firefox's market share. According to StatCounter, which bases its statitics on a much larger network, Firefox presently enjoys a global market share of over 30 % (http://preview.tinyurl.com/yeqn57z ). In Europe, Firefox's market share is about 40 %, in both North and South America well over 30 %. The only major market is which Firefox lags behind is Asia, where the browser has only captured some 25 % of the market due, mainly to the fact that it only enjoys less than 4 % of the enormous Chinese market - with the security consequences we have recently witnessed....

Henri

By mhenriday on 20 Jan 2010

But the USA

is the only market worth talking about - which is why NetApps doesn't go further afield
(Disgruntled, of UK)

By hminney on 21 Jan 2010

USA/EU

Populationwise:
USA 309 162 581 people
EU (not whole Europe) 501 259 800 people
Please check poverty in those two entities, and than talk about importance of a market.

By QuestToAnsw on 21 Jan 2010

USA/EU

Populationwise:
USA 309 162 581 people
EU (not whole Europe) 501 259 800 people
Please check poverty in those two entities, and than talk about importance of a market.

By QuestToAnsw on 21 Jan 2010

Writing on the Wall for Firefox?

I've used Firefox for a year or so but recent "upgrades" have made it very slow and a serious resource hog - even after closing it down. I'll miss some of the add-ons but will welcome back proper Help files, easily edited bookmarks that I can save as files. And I won't have to keep using Task Manager to release memory.

By Walsallian on 21 Jan 2010

Writing on the Wall for Firefox?

By Walsallian on 21 Jan 2010

USA/EU

Populationwise:
USA 309 162 581 people
EU (not whole Europe) 501 259 800 people
Please check poverty in those two entities, and than talk about importance of a market.

By QuestToAnsw on 21 Jan 2010

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