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Firefox OS smartphones to debut in July

By on February 25, 2013 4:23 pm

Mozilla will be introducing their operating system for smart phones this July. Firefox OS equipped smartphones will be the first built entirely to open Web standards, allowing for HTML5 application development.

Its official now – Mozilla is about to take part in the smartphone wars with their new open sourced Firefox operating system.  Firefox OS will be available through some major brands, and has won the approval of many international wireless providers. Sadly, U.S. buyers may have to wait until 2014 before they can get their hands on one.

So far Mozilla has gotten 17 key telecom operators to sign on with the OS.  Some of the names include China’s Unicom, American Movil, Sprint, Telenor and Telefonica.

Telefonica says they will offer the new OS equipped phones in over 20 countries by the end of 2014.  The first phones to have the OS will be in, Brazil, Columbia  Colombia, Poland, Serbia Spain and Venezuela. 

“Firefox OS brings the freedom and unbounded innovation of the open Web to mobile users everywhere,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla. “With the support of our vibrant community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online.”

Firefox OS is an open-source system and web-based, so many third party vendors would probably be jumping at the chance to create and market new apps for it.  Furthermore, all proceeds from those apps won’t need to be shared with either Apple or Google.  While the OS is advanced, it is capable of running on devices with much lower hardware needs. 

Mozilla’s Senior President of products, Jay Sullivan, said that a new operating system introduced to the market will be great move and will encourage more diversity in the marketplace, "There's a strategic imperative for the industry to have another OS that really is open and supports choice and competition," said Sullivan

The OS will debut at the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona.  A few brands that are signed onto the deal with Mozilla are the growing Huawei Corporation and ZTE out of China, and LG, which is based in South Korea.

For Mozilla to break into the smartphone world they will have to crack open the big part of the market that Google’s Android has, which is currently at 70%.  In regards to Apple they have about a 20+% take. 

Mozilla fans are cheering about the debut, but only time will tell us if the open source and web based OS will gain in popularity with app developers.  Nevertheless, many market researchers are hopeful of the OS by pointing out the new and promising markets emerging in Asia, Russia and Latin America. 

 

Jack Taylor is an accomplished writer who works as a freelance journalist and has contributed to many award winning media agencies, which includes VRzone. Born in 1971, Taylor holds a Bachelor of Science with a focus in Journalism, graduating Magna Cum Laude. An eclectic writer, Taylor specializes in editorials, trending technologies and controversial topics such as hacktivism and government spying.
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