For many years, Firefox developer Mozilla generated substantial income from a sponsorship deal with Google; the search and advertising firm paid Mozilla in return for Firefox making Google its default search engine. That deal was ended last year, with Firefox defaulting to Yahoo in the US, Yandex in Russia, and Baidu in China.
Given the prior dependence on the Google deal, this was a big shift for the open source browser developer. Mozilla has just released its 2014 financial report; last year it had just shy of $330 million of revenue, 98 percent of which came from its search deals.
In 2014 that meant the Google deal, but now the organization says that it isn't receiving anything from Mountain View. Although Google remains the default search engine within Europe, Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Mozilla's chief business and legal officer, told CNET that "We don't have a commercial relationship with Google at this point."
In spite of this, Chief Financial Officer Jim Cook claims that its 2015 performance will be even better, thanks to the new range of "very strong" search partnerships.
Nonetheless, Firefox continues to face challenges in moving beyond the desktop. The initial plan for Firefox OS, a smartphone operating system built around Web technology, was to target low-end phones in developing markets. While new price points were reached Android has been able to reach these same markets, closing the door on Firefox OS. Accordingly, 2015 saw a shift in strategy, with Firefox OS being aimed at embedded markets such as "smart" TVs and Mozilla building mobile Firefox browsers for iOS and Android. Thus far, these efforts do not appear to have produced any considerable usage.
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