Mozilla jumps into smartphone OS fray
Firefox maker plans to revolutionise mobile industry by targeting developing world
Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox internet browser, will today launch its first smartphone operating platform and the handsets on which it will run in an attempt to shake up the way the mobile world does business.
Aimed squarely at the developing world, Firefox OS will run on handsets made by Chinese companies ZTE, Alcatel One Touch and others and costing less than HK$1,200.
Networks from across the globe, including Telefonica, which is big in Europe and South America, as well as Sprint in the US and Etisalat in Africa and the Middle East, will use the annual Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona this week to announce their launch plans for the Firefox phones.
Working the floors to persuade the all-important application producers to back his project will be Mozilla Corporation chief executive Gary Kovacs.
At first glance, he seems sure to fail. The world of personal computers has only ever had two operating systems that mattered, and smartphones are following the same pattern. Apple's iOS and Google's Android hold an 85 per cent share of the market, and Microsoft and BlackBerry are in a fight to the death to establish themselves as alternatives. Do we need a fifth operating system?
"We won't over time," Kovacs said. "Now the mobile world is busy, and it's because there is so much economic value to be gained by owning the platform. We are not trying to get in the middle of an operating-system fight; what we're trying to do is be the catalyst to drive more development around the open web."