Head of the Mozilla Foundation in Moscow

On March 27, a small (I would even say, chamber) joint press briefing by Yandex and the Mozilla Foundation took place in Moscow, dedicated to their recently established partnership. The main culprits of the event, Arkady Volozh and Mitchell Baker, called only three dozen journalists (including Arthur Welf among them) and immediately admitted that there would be no news or loud statements, but there would be answers to any questions. Well, if so, we will ask.

I’ll warn you right away: the technical questions asked by Habr’s users last week could not be voiced, as Mrs. Baker was not very competent in this plan and advised to contact Mozilla technical experts (in particular, Brandon Ike), which we will definitely do in the near future. the future. Nevertheless, the briefing was quite interesting.

Before journalists started asking questions, the head of Yandex, Arkady Volozh, said a few warm words about partnership with Mozilla and stressed that his company always tried to be friends with large organizations and will continue to do so. The head of the Mozilla Foundation, Mitchell Baker, in turn, also very positively responded about the partnership with Yandex and allowed herself to tell a little about the history of Mozilla.

According to her, the Internet could develop in one of two directions: “open” and “closed”. The first implies an absolutely free development, mainly determined by the users themselves, and the second - determined exclusively by a certain group of people, an organization. Since Mitchell and her colleagues supported the first path of development, they created Mozilla and tried to develop the company along the appropriate path. Now the share of Mozilla in the world market is about 20%, and in Europe - about 30%. Having decided to take a serious position in Russia, Mozilla began searching for a partner, which Yandex eventually became. Now the share of Firefox in Russia is just under 18%, which is quite a good indicator, especially considering the fact that the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization. But how then does the company earn? With the answer to this question, the press briefing itself began.
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Tell me, on what company Mozilla earns?
Baker : Like most open source projects, we make profit from search advertising.
Volozh : Advertising business model - the main one in the modern Internet. In this case, everything is simple: when users search for something through a browser, the authors of this browser receive a portion of the revenue from the corresponding search advertising.

Is the true reason for the deal Mozilla and "Yandex" exit browser Google Chrome?
Baker : No. We chose Yandex because it is the best partner for us.

Is it possible to release "Yandex" (or together with "Yandex") Russian browser? After all, Russia already has its own search engines, instant messengers.
Baker : The Russian browser should not be so specific that it can only be used in Russia.
Volozh : We will not make your browser at least until we hire the person who invented JavaScript :)

What do you think, is it possible now that a single browser does not occupy 20-30 percent of the market, but all 90? In other words, is monopolization possible in this market?
Baker : As for Mozilla, we do not have a goal to dominate the market. The share of Internet Explorer will decline, but not very rapidly. The share of Safari will grow in only one case: when the share of Mac OS grows. And what about Google Chrome ... Well, let's see if big money and a strong brand can significantly affect the market.

Where do you see the specifics of Russia and the Russian market?
Baker : Local services are very popular in Russia. In addition, which is typical, the use of mobile Internet and related technologies in Russia is very different from, say, Japan and the USA.

Arkady, Yandex has already released its build of IE, now Firefox. What to expect next?
Volozh : What is happening with Microsoft now is the level of relations with Mozilla in June last year.

When it comes to the “Russian version of Firefox,” is meant only Russia or other countries (Ukraine, Kazakhstan), too?
Baker : We release language versions that are not tied to a specific country, but to a specific language.

Has Mozilla earned more after declining to cooperate with Google in favor of Yandex?
Volozh : It is very difficult to count.
Baker : You won't believe me, but I don't know :)

How has the spread of Firefox changed after Google replaced it in its recommended suite of software with Chrome?
Baker : We are seeing some small changes.

Is Mozilla working with other search engines and companies?
Baker : Hardly.
Volozh:; )

On this positive note, the press briefing was over and the communication gradually shifted to the lobby. Unfortunately, Mitchell was unable to give answers to technical questions, so she advised me to contact the relevant specialists in Mozilla, which I will do in April. I really hope that I will be able to talk with Brandon Ike. Follow the announcements.