I came across an interesting fact today: "The Chinese name for red panda is hunho or firefox, due to their colour and similar size to a fox." So . . . would the Chinese associate Mozilla's Firefox browser with a panda bear, despite the fox logo? We'll soon find out, as Mozilla has announced plans to open a corporate office in Beijing.
Firefox users shouldn't be worried that the company is adopting Microsoft's conquer-everything approach, however. "It's not our goal to make sure that everyone in the world is using Firefox," promised Mozilla COO John Lilly. "My main goal is that people know there's a choice - that going on the Internet is not just clicking the blue 'E.'"
That quote comes from a
Reuters article, which also reported that "Mozilla employs 100 staff worldwide." It's reasonable to expect that the number will rise thanks to the new office.
Any new employees won't be all alone in China, though - some more experienced hands will be relatively close.
Mozilla already has a presence in that country, you see, but it's focused solely on non-profit, open-source issues.
The corporate office will be more concerned with spreading the Firefox gospel. Lilly hopes that, within a "couple years," his company will be able to "raise its slice of the China market to match its 9 percent share in Japan . . ."
(On a side note: the bit of linguistic trivia with which I started this article comes courtesy of the Wellington Zoo's
website, so all credit - or blame - for the translation goes to it.)
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