Breaking: Mozilla changes strategy, focuses on Firefox and AI

[harlan4096]

It has been less than a week since the new interim CEO took over the reigns from long-time Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. Today news broke that Mozilla is changing its product strategy going forward.

The organization plans to focus on bringing "trustworthy AI into Firefox" and to scale back some of its other products and services.

Affected products include Mozilla VPN, Firefox Relay, and Online Footprint Scrubber. The organization will also reduce investments in its Mastadon instance. These products are not going away. Mozilla will shut down some of its products next to that. First product to receive the ax is Hub, a 3D virtual world that Mozilla launched several years ago.

Mozilla explains in an internal memo that it is reducing investments in "market segments that competitors crowd and where it is challenging to deliver a differentiated offering".  The VPN niche, for instance, is very competitive. Hundreds of companies fight for market share and there are several good options for privacy conscious users, including Mullvad, which Mozilla VPN is based on.

About 60 employees in the "People Team" are laid off as a consequence of the restructuring.

Mozilla plans to keep investing in products and services, but only "in products addressing customer needs in growing market segments".

The organization's focus will be on Firefox going forward. More precisely, on bringing "trustworthy AI into Firefox". For this, Mozilla is "bringing together Pocket, Content, and the AI/ML teams supporting content with the Firefox Organization".
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