Firefox OS is Mozilla’s plan to bring an affordable, Web-centric smartphone to emerging economies around the world. At Mobile World Congress, Mozilla finally announced which countries will be getting their hands on the new OS first.
Mozilla announced that Firefox OS will be launching across 17 carriers around the world throughout the year. The first carriers to get the OS in the middle of this year are America Movil, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and Telenor. These carriers represent a spread across the countries of Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Siberia, 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.”
As for the hardware, Mozilla will be working with Alcatel, LG and ZTE to build the first wave of Firefox OS smartphones. Each phone will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. If the phones are anything like the developer preview hardware, the Firefox OS phones will either come with a Snapdragon S1 or S4 processor.
Mozilla also announced at Mobile World Congress that its online marketplace – Firefox Marketplace – will be launching day one with Firefox OS later this year. It’s already available on Firefox for Android Aurora, and the final release will include a number of popular apps and games to give the platform a boost upon launch.
Some of the launch titles on Firefox Marketplace will include popular titles like Where’s My Water, Cut The Rope and MTV Brasil.
“Firefox OS will break down the walls between apps and the Web because Firefox OS apps are built using Web technologies, like HTML5. We expect to see lots of amazing apps people love built for Firefox OS because more developers are already creating for the Web than for any other platform,” said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla Senior Vice President of Products. “Firefox OS delivers a rich, delightful and personalized experience for users and people can search for anything that is on their mind to discover relevant apps that can be used instantly, even apps they’ve never installed or used before.”
If you want more information on Firefox OS, here’s a video of Jay Sullivan, Mozilla Senior VP of Products, talking about it at Mobile World Congress:
