Mozilla: huge profits
By Bala Shah

Mozilla’s browser ‘Firefox’ is a quality product and goes a long way in ensuring that the giants like Microsoft, Apple and Google do not dominate the market.  There were 28 million Firefox users in 2006 which has grown to 68 million this year.  Other Mozilla products like SeaMonkey have 5 million users and Thunderbird as many as 10 million users.

Yesterday, the not-for-profit Mozilla released its financials details for 2007 and they are rock solid.  The revenues for both Mozilla Foundations as well as Mozilla Corporation were $75 million USD; a 12 percent increase from 2006 revenue.  (Like many not-for-profit organizations in USA, Mozilla files its accounts as late as is legally permissible).

Most of the Mozilla revenue comes from Google.  The agreement between Google and Mozilla expires in 2011.

Mozilla expenses for 2007 were $33 million which was a 68 percent increase from 2006.  Most of these costs were of the 150 people it employs all over the world.

Mozilla has no workers in India.

Mozilla has assets of $99 million dollars.

Buried in the official Mozilla report is the statement that the American tax authorities (IRS) are investigating whether Mozilla with its huge revenue and profits should be treated as a not-for-profit organization.  Perhaps their biggest concern is that Mozilla earns most of its money from Google.

The Mozilla financial statement brazenly claims: “Mozilla’s participants do want a return on their investment. That return is our effectiveness in creating a part of the Internet that is open, participatory, innovative and promotes decentralized decision-making. Financial resources are one tool in generating this return. But they are not the only tool. The open source software development model is adept at providing multiple tools to achieve our goals. Financial resources are a catalyst, but neither the goal nor the only tool.”

Even for a moment no one believes that Google is supporting Mozilla for purely noble ideals.  But on the whole Mozilla is contributing greatly to the democratization and quality of the internet.  And that is a good thing.

Techgoss note:  While Mozilla has opened a development centre in China, it is still reaching out to its millions of fans in India.  While there is no development centre in India, there are a couple of lines about India in the financial report: “In 2007 Mozilla contributors from the United States made a series of trips to India, resulting in many contacts and one of our 2008 interns.”