We
are, of course, talking about Firefox OS, the open source, Web-based
smartphone operating system created by Mozilla. The company announced
Sunday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, that it has
partnered with device manufacturers and mobile operators across the
world to launch Firefox smartphones in 2013.
Mozilla
also officially launched the Firefox Marketplace, an app store
featuring mobile Web applications and websites that will be able to
operate on the new smartphones. Both the Firefox OS and Marketplace are
optimized towards HTML5 development and open Web standards using
Mozilla’s Firefox browser as its backbone.
Mozilla
claimed three initial manufacturers ready to build and deploy Firefox
OS smartphones: LG, Alcatel and ZTE. These devices will be distributed
to 17 global carriers in nine countries, including Brazil, Colombia,
Mexico, Serbia, Montenegro, Poland, Spain, Hungary and Venezuela. (Note
that these are largely developing markets, and the list does not include
the United States.) Since the announcement yesterday, Sony has also
said that it would build and release Firefox OS smartphones in 2014. On
the other hand, market leader Samsung has said that it is not interested
in building smartphones for Mozilla (likely due to its investment in
the similar Tizen platform).
Mozilla’s Evolution
The
seed of Firefox OS came from Mozilla’s first ventures into the mobile
browser wars against Android. Mozilla started with its rendering layout
engine, Gecko, and applied it to Android as a third-party browser.
Initially, the Gecko-boot of Firefox for Android was named Fennec.
Mozilla then started thinking bigger.
As
HTML5 has evolved into the newest open Web standard, Mozilla became a
leading developer and evangelist for HTML5 websites and apps. The
problem that Mozilla had with smartphones, though, was that it was not
possible to tie smartphone hardware capabilities to mobile browsers. If
you ever hear of the “Web vs. Native” argument when it comes to apps,
the issue of tying Web browsers to smartphone and tablet hardware (like a
camera, accelerometer etc.) is central to the issue. Mozilla wanted to
fix that and created what it calls Web APIs (application programming
interfaces) to access hardware through a browser.
(See more ReadWrite coverage of HTML5.)
That
goal was what ultimately led Mozilla to announce its own smartphones
this year at Mobile World Congress. It has dedicated itself to open Web
standards and mobile evolution, all in the name of consumer choice.
Firefox OS smartphones will be extremely affordable and targeted at
emerging smartphone markets where there is still a lot of potential to
make a dent in the industry.
Building The Marketplace
As
shown in the rise of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, the name of the
game in smartphones is apps. Mozilla plans on leveraging the power of
the Web to build out its app store by enabling websites and app
developers to create apps for the mobile Web that can easily be
integrated into Firefox OS.
To start, Firefox
announced that a variety of content and app partnerships with the likes
of AirBnB, Box, Disney Mobile Games, EA Games, Facebook, Pulse News,
Sound Cloud, Twitter and others. Mozilla stated that it will have a
variety of games, news and media, productivity and business apps.
When
it comes to apps built for the likes of iOS, Android, Windows Phone and
BlackBerry, many already have a core of HTML5 and Web-based technology
powering them. Apps are often built as mobile websites and then
“wrapped” with native properties to help them connect to device hardware
before being deployed to the various native app stores. Mozilla’s plan
is to eliminate that need to “wrap” apps and let developers build
straight for the Web. The potential is that almost any app that will
work in browser can easily be deployed to the Firefox Marketplace,
reducing the cost for developing and distributing apps.
We will see the first Firefox OS smartphones in developing markets later this year.
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