Mozilla’s CEO John Lilly has now openly admitted that the companies relationship with Google has become complicated ever since the launch of Chrome, Google’s own web browser. According to Lilly:
We have a fine and reasonable relationship. But I’d be lying if I said that things weren’t more complicated than they used to be.
The bulk of Mozilla’s revenues comes from Google as a result of a search bar deal with Google. Mozilla ships Firefox with its search bar defaulting to Google, and in turn gets a cut from Google from revenues generated from the searches conducted via Firefox search bar. In 2007, 88% or about $60 million of Mozilla revenues came from Google, which makes the Search Giant one of Mozilla’s biggest partners. However, with the launch of Chrome, Google has also become one of the fiercest competitors to Mozilla in the browser market. No wonder Lilly thinks of this to be complicating.
