The free software community, Mozilla, presented its mobile operating system, Firefox OS, to audiences at 2013 Mobile World Congress on Sunday, February 24th. During that presentation Mozilla also announced it would launch a new range of smartphones that will run its Firefox OS that have been developed through partnerships with four smartphon manufacturers including Huawei, South Korean company LG, ZTE and Alcatle. However, barely 24 hours after this announcement another top company jumped on to the Mozilla bandwagon and announced that they also want a piece of the HTML 5 based OS. Sony committed to launch a Firefox OS based devices in 2014.
According to TNW, the Deputy CEO of Sony, Bob Ishida has said that, “the company’s engineers are working with Firefox OS and HTML5, along with operator partners, with the aim to release a device or devices sometime next year.”
This means that now Mozilla has five smartphone makers on its board. In this short period of time, getting companies like LG and Sony on its board was truly a remarkable achievement by Mozilla. More importantly it indicates that there is something special about the Firefox OS that has lured these mobile phone makers. In addition, it also indicates that Mozilla is now not only spreading its wings, but also ready to take on Android and iOS based devices.
Sony made this announcement along with the declaration that Telefonica will make its recently launched smartphone Xperia Z and slate Xperia Tablet Z in limited number of markets across the globe. Moreover, at this point in time the Japanese manufacturer also made it known that Telefonica and Sony will also jointly gather resources “to explore the development of a handset” running Mozilla’s latest mobile operating system.
For several years Sony used to run it own mobile operating systems that was basically the Symbian platform of Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia, when it was working in association with Ericsson. However, after parting ways with Ericsson Sony adopted Google’s Android OS and now it has produced numerous mobile devices that are running the popular operating system.
In the meantime, Sony received continued calls to produce Windows Phone model as well, but it seems that the multinational corporation has no interest in making such mobile phones, as it is aiming to grow its user base in developing countries through its Android powered phones that are affordable and come without any sort of restrictions related to apps or usage.
Source: TNW