Michelle Baker, the Mozilla CEO, wrote that the Mozilla Foundation made $52.9 million in revenue in 2005. The majority of it coming from search engine relationships, such as Google’s default search box in the top-right of the browser.
These are some very profitable arrangements, ones that have opened up a new category of business model now used by browser and plug-in companies, such as Opera. Mozilla spent $8.2 million in 2005, leaving $44.7 million in profit for what Baker calls “a reserve fund.”
To me, this is an excellent example of people thinking outside of the traditional retailer-consumer based business model. You don’t need to sell products to make money! Partnerships and cooperation can go a long way.
Even websites that tout online advertising as a significant revenue getter are hard pressed to beat a good partnership like the ones Firefox has forged with it’s sponsors. If you are running Firefox, drop down the menu in the upper right and see all of the search engines listed.. Yahoo, Amazon, Answers.com. All paid inclusions, I am sure. But the integration is seemless.
It’s just something to think about when you start looking at ways of making money for your site or service. Sometimes the solutions that are least apparent are the most profitable.
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It’s worth noting that we had this handful of search services built into Firefox long before there was any revenue associated with them. We did it because it was the right thing to do for web browser users and our choices of search services and defaults were based on what our users asked for, not based on a revenue agreement with the services.
Sometimes just doing right by your users can eventually “pay off”
- A
Hi Asa,
I am glad that you mentioned that! I have been using Firefox since it came out, and I thought I remembered that functionality (oh, so long ago!)
The great thing about your company is that you have done the right thing – launching an open source browser based on user’s needs. Then, you were able to make money through it in a pretty unconventional way. It justs shows that good revenue streams don’t need to be built on traditional models.
And as a bit of a disclaimer, I have long been of the opinion that I won’t succeed until everyone else does… So I think your mission is fantastic.