If you’re interested in the insights, insides and strategies of some of your favorite companies, Wired sat down for a very interesting talk that may shed some light on some of your burning questions. 

John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, talks about how his little browser that could stole a piece of the pie made whole by the once dominate and only game in town, Microsoft.

Wired: Why did Firefox catch on in the first place, and how has it stolen users from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer?

Lilly: When Firefox came out in 2004, there wasn’t much browser innovation happening at Microsoft. People used Firefox, saw it was really fast and liked the tabs, and stayed.

Also, people now understand what we stand for — the participatory and open Web — and they like that. It’s why we launched Firefox 3 in more than 45 languages. The idea that people worldwide can feel a sense of ownership about software that’s initially only in English — like IE7 — is bogus.

Wired: That’s nice, but it’s not exactly a long-term strategic plan. Do you worry about competition from Apple now that it has enabled Safari on Windows?

Lilly: I used to work at Apple. I have an iPhone. But there are other ways of developing software. Instead of relying on individual brilliance, we rely on enabling a network around the world, like Wikipedia does. That’s a different aesthetic.

Wired: Is it an aesthetic or a rationalization for not producing well-designed products?

Lilly: It’s an aesthetic. Apple is great if you like the way it comes. Firefox is great if you like to customize things. The focus is on how it lets you do what you want, not how it looks.

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