Mozilla plans on bringing "freedom to hundreds of millions", at the competitions expense -- or die trying. (Source: Paramount Pictures)
Mozilla deploys messaging subsidiary to take on instant messaging, email markets
The non-profit Mozilla Foundation has made great inroads in the browser war. As Microsoft exchanges heated words with it, Mozilla's Firefox browser has slowly been nibbling away at Internet Explorer's marketshare lead. With the release of Firefox 3.0 impending and Internet Explorer 8 only on the distant horizon, it seems a very happy time for Mozilla. Mozilla today announced more good news -- it's having a baby.
Mozilla has just launched a child company, Mozilla Messaging. This new company will take up the development of Thunderbird 3.0 to coincide with the release of Firefox 3.0. Being a separate entity, according to the Mozilla Messaging team, will allow them to better focus their efforts in creating a terrific email client to compete with Microsoft's Outlook client, and IBM's Lotus Notes, another popular business email client. The new version of Thunderbird will feature integrated calendars with greatly expanded functionality, improved searches, and many other user interface and performance improvements.
The small staff of Mozilla Messaging hopes to do big things, with the help of open-source developers around the world. David Ascher, CEO, Mozilla Messaging, emphasizes that Mozilla Messaging intends to stay true to its open-source roots, stating, "We're excited to renew the focus of our open source community on the future of Thunderbird. Every one of us is committed to building a great email product that
people will love to use and that serves as the foundation for choice in
a critical area of Internet software."
The Mozilla Foundation fully owns Mozilla Messaging. Its board of directors includes a couple of former Mozilla Foundation executives, consisting of David Ascher, CEO, Mozilla Messaging; Christopher Beard, VP and General
Manager, Mozilla Labs; and Marten Mickos, CEO of open source database
vendor MySQL AB.
Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB, the only outsider is extremely enthusiastic about the venture, stating, "Thunderbird email is a vital part of the Mozilla project which brings
freedom to hundreds of millions of internet users worldwide. By joining the board of Mozilla Messaging, I hope to help the world communicate better."
In a separate press release that is an interview transcript with David Ascher, Mr. Ascher hints that Mozilla may step into the instant messaging world. He states, "[The company is named] Mozilla Messaging, Inc., to reflect both that this is a Mozilla
company, and that we’re focusing on the Internet messaging and
communications space as a whole, not just email."
Mozilla Messaging is fully owned by the Mozilla Foundation. For an interesting read on the field of unified messaging, a pertinent topic, please refer to DailyTech's analysis of the state of unified messaging today.
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