Mozilla Corporation

Mozilla Corporation Type Private Founded Mountain View, California (2005) Headquarters Mountain View, CA, USA; with additional locations in San Francisco, California; Vancouver, Canada; Toronto, Canada; Paris, France; Taipei, Taiwan; Tokyo, Japan; Beijing, China; and Auckland, New Zealand. Key people Gary Kovacs, CEO Products Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Thunderbird more... Revenue $91.3 million (2009) [1] Net income $43.1 million (2009)[1] Employees 600+[2] Subsidiaries Mozilla Online (China) Website mozilla.com Entrance to downtown Mountain View office building currently home to both the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation Former office next to the Googleplex shared by both the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation until July 2009

The Mozilla Corporation (abbreviated MoCo) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey Navigator web browsers and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client by a growing global community of open-source developers, some of whom are employed by the corporation itself. The corporation also distributes and promotes these products. Unlike the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla open source project, founded by the now defunct Netscape Corporation, the Mozilla Corporation is a taxable entity. The Mozilla Corporation reinvests some or all of its profits back into the Mozilla projects.^[3] The Mozilla Corporation's stated aim is to work towards the Mozilla Foundation's public benefit to "promote choice and innovation on the Internet."^[4]

As explained in a MozillaZine article: "The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in."^[5]

Establishment

The Mozilla Corporation was established on August 3, 2005 to handle the revenue-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation. As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in terms of the types and amounts of revenue. The Mozilla Corporation, as a taxable organization (essentially, a commercial operation), does not have to comply with such strict rules. Upon its creation, the Mozilla Corporation took over several areas from the Mozilla Foundation, including coordination and integration of the development of Firefox and Thunderbird (by the global free software community) and the management of relationships with businesses.

With the creation of the Mozilla Corporation, the rest of the Mozilla Foundation narrowed its focus to concentrate on the Mozilla project's governance and policy issues. In November 2005, with the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5, the Mozilla Corporation's website at mozilla.com was unveiled as the new home of the Firefox and Thunderbird products online.

In 2006 the Mozilla Corporation generated 66.8 million dollars in revenue and 19.8 million in expenses, with 85% of that revenue coming from Google for "assigning [Google] as the browser's default search engine, and for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages."^[6]

Notable events

In March 2006, Weblogs, Inc. founder Jason Calacanis reported a rumor on his blog that Mozilla Corporation gained $72M during the previous year, mainly thanks to the Google search box in the Firefox browser.^[7] The rumor was later addressed by Christopher Blizzard, a member of the Mozilla board, who wrote on his blog that "it’s not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude".^[8] "In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum - in 2006 the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and will now run through 2011."^[9]

In August 2006, Microsoft posted a letter on Mozilla newsgroups^[10] and offered to open up a new open-source facility at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to Mozilla software engineers. Mozilla responded by accepting the offer.^[11]

On September 6, 2006 the Mozilla Corporation hired Window Snyder, former security strategist at Microsoft.^[12] Snyder left Mozilla and began work for Apple Inc in March 2010.^[13]

People

The Mozilla Corporation Board of Directors is appointed by and responsible to the Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors:

• Mitchell Baker (Chairperson)
• Reid Hoffman, former CEO of LinkedIn
• John Lilly
• Ellen Siminoff, President and CEO of Shmoop University and Chairman of Efficient Frontier

The Mozilla Corporation management team includes:

• Gary Kovacs, CEO
• Brendan Eich, CTO
• Jim Cook, CFO
• Chris Beard, Chief Marketing Officer
• Jay Sullivan, VP of Products
• Harvey Anderson, VP, General Counsel

Other notable employees include (in alphabetical order):

• Christopher Blizzard, formerly of Red Hat
• Neil Deakin
• Asa Dotzler, Director of Community Development
• Dave Miller, lead developer of Bugzilla
• Johnny Stenbäck

Notable Mozilla Alumni include:

• Mike Shaver, VP of Technical Strategy --> Facebook
• Justin Fitzhugh, VP of Engineering Operations --> Jive Software
• John Resig, Technical Evangelist (jQuery Creator) --> Khan Academy
• Mike Schroepfer, VP of Engineering --> Facebook

At the time of the Mozilla Corporation's creation, most of the Mozilla Foundation employees were transferred to the new organization.

See also

	San Francisco Bay Area portal
	Companies portal
	Free software portal

• Mozilla Foundation

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Mozilla Foundation and Subsidiary: 2009 Independent Auditors' Report and Consolidated Financial Statements" (PDF). Mozilla Foundation. 2009-12-31. http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/mf-2009-audited-financial-statement.pdf. Retrieved 2010-11-18. 
2. ^ "Firefox engineer Paul Rouget provides an update on the latest Mozilla employee numbers" Retrieved on 2011-09-20
3. ^ Mozilla Foundation Reorganization
4. ^ http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2005-08-03.html Mozilla press release: "Mozilla Foundation Forms New Organization to Further the Creation of Free, Open Source Internet Software, Including the Award-Winning Mozilla Firefox Browser"
5. ^ MozillaZine article: "Mozilla Foundation Announces Creation of Mozilla Corporation" Retrieved via the Internet Archive on 03-24-2009.
6. ^ [1]
7. ^ Calacanis blog: "Firefox (Mozilla Corporation/Mozilla Foundation) made $72M last year?!"
8. ^ 0xDeadBeef.com: "apply pinky to corner of mouth".
9. ^ Kincaid-TechCrunch.com: "Mozilla Extends Lucrative Deal With Google For 3 Years".
10. ^ Google Groups: "mozilla.dev.planning Microsoft offer".
11. ^ CNet.com: "Microsoft offers helping hand to Firefox".
12. ^ Computer World.com: "Mozilla taps former Microsoft executive for security strategy."
13. ^ http://www.pcworld.com/article/190524/exmozilla_security_chief_takes_job_at_apple.html

• "Mozilla Foundation Forms New Organization to Further the Creation of Free, Open Source Internet Software, Including the Award-Winning Mozilla Firefox Browser". Mozilla Press Center. http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2005-08-03.html. Retrieved August 3, 2005. 
• "Mozilla Foundation Announces Creation of Mozilla Corporation". MozillaZine. http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=7085. Retrieved August 3, 2005. 

External links

• Mozilla Corporation
• Mozilla Foundation Reorganization
• Mozilla Corp. in 12 simple items