Firefox OS gets a mobile foothold

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Partners backing the browser-based mobile operating system include phone maker LG Electronics and 18 mobile network operators across the world. The first phones are due in the second quarter.

The Geeksphone Keon, a Firefox OS developer preview phone.

Laying the groundwork for its nascent Firefox OS, Mozilla has won over a sizeable list of allies including LG Electronics and China Unicom, and the first phones with the browser-based operating system should arrive in the second quarter of the year.

Mozilla announced today at the Mobile World Congress show here that it's persuaded 18 mobile network operators and four mobile phone makers to back its open-source mobile operating system. That's not enough to unseat the incumbent powers of Google's Android and Apple's iOS slayer, but it is enough to ensure Firefox OS at least isn't extinguished before it even hits the market in the second quarter.

The first phones should arrive in the second quarter of the year, said Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich.

Mozilla won commitments to sell Firefox OS phones from these carriers: America Moovil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, TMN, and VimpelCom. Handset manufacturers on board are Alcatel, ZTE, LG Electronics, and Huawei, with a boost from chipmaker Qualcomm.

That's not necessarily a big foothold in the U.S. market, but Firefox OS is geared chiefly for more-budget-conscious regions. The first markets for the phone will be Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain, and Venezuela, Mozilla said.

Telefonica, Mozilla's first and strongest Firefox OS ally, plans to push the phone aggressively in Latin America for customers who want something more powerful than a feature phone but not as expensive as an iPhone. Its first phones will arrive mid-2013, with new models in late 2013 and 2014, the company said. Telefonica shared the Mobile World Congress stage with Mozilla last year to show the first versions of Firefox OS.

Mozilla has a version of Firefox for Android, but its performance is limited by the requirement of running on Android's Java-like programming foundation, Eich said. And of course people must install it themselves.

Thus, when it comes to mobile, Firefox OS is more important than Firefox on Android. "I think Firefox OS is the thing to scale up," Eich said.

It won't be easy

Even with its allies, Firefox OS will be a hard sell for many. Inexpensive Android phones and early-model iPhones can be competitive, and even companies like Microsoft and BlackBerry have had only limited success attracting not just customers, but also the developers essential to ensure there are apps those customers can use.

"It's open source, there's nice technology in there," said Adam Fleming, chief technical officer of mobile software developer Apadmi. "But the business side of my brain says until you get a decent level of saturation, no serious developer is going to be looking at it."

The Geeksphone Peak, a phone for developers using Firefox OS

Mozilla has begun recruiting developers, such as a global Firefox OS hack day in January that attracted 2,500 participants, but it recognizes that it has to start by getting phones into the market -- and not just the Geeksphone Keon and Peak designed for Firefox OS developers.

"The first piece of hard work is to get operators and OEMs [handset makers] excited about Firefox OS," said Johnathan Nightingale, vice president of Firefox engineering. "We've only ever succeeded through [building] high-quality products."

Mozilla, a nonprofit organization best known for its widely used Firefox Web browser, isn't like other competitors. It uses its software not to please shareholders but rather to foster openness on the Web. However, Mozilla is hamstrung because Firefox has effectively no presence at all in the fast-growing mobile market.

Firefox isn't allowed on iOS, and it's not the default on Android, which means Mozilla has little leverage in charting the course of the Web. And with walled gardens, patent barriers, and proprietary technology so commonplace in the mobile market, it's precisely the area where Mozilla feels the greatest need to inject some openness.

"The world still needs Mozilla," Eich said.

That's why Mozilla decided to build Firefox OS, which began in 2011 as a project called Boot to Gecko. Like ordinary Firefox, it runs Web apps written in Web languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript -- which Eich invented, by the way -- but it also includes phone-specific interfaces for things like monitoring battery life and phone orientation.

Running start with Web programming

The Web programming approach means that, like Google's Chrome OS used on Chromebooks today, developers can get off to a running start. That's especially with many companies like Facebook using Web apps as a way to reach a broad range of devices. Every smartphone has a Web browser, after all.

Firefox OS software will be available through the Firefox Marketplace, an open app store that'll include Firefox apps such as Zepto Labs' Cut the Rope, EA Games' Pogo's Poppit, Time Out, SoundCloud, Nokia Here, Twitter, Facebook, Airbnb, and Disney Mobile Games' Where's My Water?

Because there are many differences in browsers -- particularly mobile browsers -- Web programming can be complicated for the mobile market. It's not a single unified "write once, run anywhere" foundation.

"You get just as much fragmentation across Web applications," Fleming said.

Part of Mozilla's effort is to improve the mobile Web standards for everyone, Eich said. "We're uplifting the whole stack," he said. For example, he said, Samsung is building some phone-specific interfaces into the WebKit project that's used by Google Chrome, Apple Safari, future Opera products, and several other browsers.

Of course, iOS and Android now have expanded from smartphones to tablets. Will Firefox OS follow suit? Not to start with, Eich said.

"Almost all the inbound partner interest was phones first," he said. Likewise, Eich said there's no appetite for a browser-based Firefox OS for PCs. "We've talked to some partners, but it really didn't rise to the top of the heap."

Mozilla today is chiefly funded by search-ad revenue from Google, which the company shares with Mozilla when people use Firefox to initiate searches. It's not yet clear how the mobile effort will generate money for the organization, which though it doesn't care about profits per se does care about paying its 320 engineers and pursuing its open-Web mission.

"Right now we're not worrying about that," Eich said about Firefox OS revenue. "First we'll get the users, then we'll worry about monetization."

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[DKT27]

Firefox OS phones to debut in 2013

Mozilla has announced that the first smartphones that will run on its Firefox OS will launch in parts of Europe later in 2013, with a launch in the US not due until sometime in 2014.



A year ago, Mozilla announced its plans to enter into the already crowded smartphone operating system field. Originally called Boot to Gecko, Mozilla later renamed it Firefox OS. Today as part of its Mobile World Congress announcement, Mozilla said the first smartphones using the operating system will make their debut later this year.

Mozilla's press release said that Alcatel, LG and ZTE will all launch smartphones that will use Firefox OS – Huawei is also coming, but sometime later – and it has secured 17 wireless operators around the world to sell those phones. Deutsche Telekom will be the first out of the gate, selling the Alcatel One Touch Fire in Poland later this summer. Other countries slated to get Firefox OS smartphones this year include Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

All of the Firefox smartphones will have a version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor as part of their hardware. In a separate press release, Mozilla offered details on the Firefox Marketplace, which will give owners of Firefox OS phones a way to download and/or purchase HTML5-based apps.

And will U.S. residents get the opportunity to buy a Firefox OS phone? Yes, but not for a while. Engadget reports that the US will have to wait until sometime in 2014 for the Firefox OS to make its debut.

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[iankernal]

In a press conference ahead of Mobile World Congress, Mozilla said that 18 operators including Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica, were signed up.

The mobiles will go head to head with established software from Apple and Google's Android division. Mozilla described the Firefox OS as an "open alternative".

Firefox phones are likely to be sold first in the developing world and Eastern Europe and will be at the cheaper end of the smartphone market, according to Jay Sullivan, vice president of products at Mozilla. He said manufacturers LG, ZTE, Huawei and TCL had all committed to building devices, with more firms "to follow".

The platform is based on the HTML5 web programming language which Mr Sullivan says gave it an advantage over Apple and Android.

"The Firefox marketplace is web-based and will allow a device to do things differently,"

"If someone searches for content it will show any apps that have that content. The web can be searched, indexed and crawled in ways native apps cannot,"

"Developers are busy and don't have time to learn a new programming language. We believe that the only remaining eco-system is the web and there are more developers for the web than for any other platform in the world."

At the beginning of the year, Mozilla revealed a partnership with Spanish firm Geeksphone, with handsets made available to developers.