Firefox on the point of reaching 30% share in Europe
Firefox is continuously strengthening its position in the European browser market. According to XiTi’s report, during the last year Firefox use in Europe has grown from 24% to 29%, snatching market share mainly from Internet Explorer. A deeper analysis shows wide differences between countries: while almost half of Finland’s Internet users navigate with Firefox, only one in every six does it in the Netherlands. Spain is still below the average but it is quickly catching up. This is reassuring, because the last time I blogged about it Spain was almost the last country in Europe.
And you might wonder why the use of Firefox matters at all. Well, at this moment it is the only massively used open source desktop application, and as such, it is the best example showing that an open source product can really become mainstream. Too often, the only way to force skeptics to see open source as a serious trend is to show them a real, specific example where an open source alternative has overthrown a closed source monopolist, and Firefox is by the moment the best example. By the way, another good argument for the skeptics is that Mozilla is also a vastly profitable organization, with a revenue between 100 and 200 million dollars per year, and rumors are arising about a possible IPO within one year time.
