It’s amazing how much money that one little [Google] search box within Firefox makes for the Mozilla Foundation.
According to the foundation’s 2006 consolidated financial statements, Mozilla made a cool pre-tax profit of $47.1-million last year compared with $44.7-million in 2005. As impressive is the fact Mozilla has operating margins of 76.5%.
As much as I’m excited about Firefox 3.0, it would also be good to see some of that Google Mozilla money be invested in giving Thunderbird a much-needed kick in the pants. Thunderbird was spun off into a new subsidiary last month but it’s future is far from clear after its only two full-time developers quit.
For more on Mozilla’s financial performance, check out Between the Lines, which does a nice job of breaking out and analyzing the balance sheet. Search Engine Watch, meanwhile, suggests Firefox be re-named Googzilla or GoogleFox.
Actually, Thunderbird’s spin-off was *announced* last month. The new corporation has not been formed yet and the Mozilla Corporation is still doing work on Thunderbird right now. I was doing QA planning for TB 2.0.0.8 earlier this week.
David Ascher is still working on the plan for the corporation, hiring, etc.
As a Thunderbird user, I’m looking for some big things. In particular, I’d love to see some top-notch extensions, particularly involving spam controls.