For Mozilla and Google, Group Hugs Get Tricky

Noah Berger for The New York Times

Published: July 25, 2009
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.

Software engineers at Mozilla's headquarters in Silicon Valley. A huge success story in open-sources software, Mozilla must now try to stay relevant in a world of many browser alternatives.

Noah Berger for The New York Times

John Lily, left, and Mitchell Baker of Mozilla. Its Firefox browser now faces competition from three giant companies. BOXES lined the cubicles and hallways in the offices of Mozilla on a recent afternoon, and its chief executive, John Lilly, seemed a bit disoriented as he looked for a place to sit. Mozilla, which makes the Firefox Web browser, had just moved from one end of this city to the other, mainly to gain more space for its growing work force. Yet it was hard not to read symbolism into the move. Mozilla’s old offices were next door to Google’s sprawling headquarters. For several years, Google has been Mozilla’s biggest ally and patron. But in September, it also became Mozilla’s competitor when it unveiled its own Web browser, Chrome. So it seemed only natural for Mozilla to move out from under Google’s shadow. “We’ve learned how to compete with Microsoft and Apple,” says Mr. Lilly, a soft-spoken, earnest 38-year-old. “Google is a giant, of course, and competing with them means we are competing with another giant, which is a little tiring.” Those big companies weren’t giving much thought to browsers when Firefox was released in 2004, and neither were most ordinary Web users. A browser was just a window onto the Web, and people used whatever was already installed on a computer. Usually that meant Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.Since then, Firefox has captured nearly a quarter of the browser market by focusing on speed, security and innovation. Its success is all the more remarkable because it was built and marketed by a far-flung community of programmers, testers and fans — mostly volunteers — coordinated by a nonprofit foundation. It is a shining example of the potential of open-source software, which anyone can modify and improve, and its ascent is one of Silicon Valley’s most unusual success stories. In short, Mozilla showed the world that browsers matter. Now the challenge is to keep proving that Mozilla matters.The rise of Firefox unleashed a new wave of innovation and competition among browser makers. Microsoft and Apple, which makes the Safari browser, have narrowed the gap with recent upgrades. That makes it less likely that people will take the trouble to seek out and install Firefox.

At the same time, the Web has been migrating from PCs to powerful mobile phones like the iPhone. Firefox won’t have a mobile version ready until later this year. And then there is Google. After introducing Chrome, a lightning-fast browser designed to run increasingly complex Web applications, Google upped the ante. This month it said it would put Chrome at the center of a new operating system — the software that handles the most basic functions of a PC. “Google, Apple and Microsoft can all throw a lot of resources toward improving their browsers. Mozilla, not so much,” says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. “When it was them against Microsoft, it wasn’t such a big problem. Now that there are other alternatives, it becomes harder for them to retain relevance.”

DESPITE Mozilla’s mighty and increasingly competitive rivals, the spread of Firefox has continued unabated. Nearly 300 million people around the world use it, making Firefox not only the most successful open-source consumer product, but also one of the most successful software programs ever. To a large extent, that success sprang from a disparate community that coalesced around Firefox and was harnessed by Mitchell Baker, Mr. Lilly’s predecessor. Ms. Baker, whom Mr. Lilly calls the “conscience” of Mozilla, remains its chairwoman and is actively involved in managing it.

Ms. Baker, 52, seems to embody Mozilla’s anticorporate ethos. Unlike the clean-cut Mr. Lilly, Ms. Baker has a decidedly counterculture look. Her hair, dyed a reddish color, is closely cropped on one side only, and she is prone to wearing sandals with hiking socks. She organized a recent meeting of nonprofit groups at Mozilla that ended with what she called a “psychic group hug” — not a literal embrace, but a chance for everyone there to describe in one word how they were feeling. For Mozilla and its millions of fans, Firefox is not just cool software but also a cause: to ensure that no company, whether Microsoft, Google or anyone else, can tilt the Web to its advantage by tweaking its browser to favor its products or applications. Microsoft appeared ready to use that tactic after its browser vanquished Netscape’s.