Mozilla CTO: Firefox in neck and neck race

Eariler this month, I spoke with Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript. We discussed the development process for the open-source Firefox browser, the status of Firefox mobile, and new competition.

Eich maintained that increasing competition from Google and Apple, as well as Microsoft, is good for developers and users. It also helps that the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation garnered $75 million in revenue, mostly from its search partnership with Google, which ironically just launched Chrome, a competitor to Firefox. With $33 million in expenses last year, it appears the Mozilla team is well funded to continue development at a rapid pace and attract top talent.

Regarding competition with Google's Chrome and other browsers, Eich said:

It's really a neck and neck race. There is a contest going on not only between Google and Mozilla but also Apple to have the fastest JavaScript engine, to have the best performance on various benchmarks. This is great. Competition is good for users and for Web developers. Another focus for us, especially for me is the Web developers...We are right in there, we are slugging it out. On the Google benchmarks their JavaScript engine is faster, on Apple's benchmarks we're faster than Google currently. It is going to vary, you are going to see it go back and forth, so it is only going to go up, which is the best thing for developers and that is what we are focused on.

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I had to re-read that quote a couple of times, as I didn't immediately understand if he meant "neck in neck" in terms of usage or in terms of performance and features. In either case, it's the right marketing tact for Firefox to portray themselves as on equal footing with both IE and the also-rans.