Mozilla's Firefox OS officially launches in new territories, including India

Posted: 17 Jul 2014, 10:00, by Florin T.

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Mozilla's Firefox OS officially launches in new territories, including India

Mozilla today announced that its Firefox OS is showing “strong momentum”, and handsets based on it will be available in more markets in the near future - including in Asia Pacific and in more countries across Europe and Latin America.

New European markets where customer will be able to buy Firefox OS smartphones include France, Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Moreover, starting this week, users in Germany will be able to buy the new Alcatel OneTouch Fire E (pictured below) - thanks to Deutsche Telekom’s congstar (a prepaid brand) and Telefónica’s O2.

As for Asia Pacific, Mozilla chose India and Taiwan as the first countries where it’ll offer Firefox OS phones. Spice and Intex will be the manufacturers that will sell Firefox-based handsets in India starting this month. As we reported not long ago, the handsets should cost around $50.

Later this year, Mozilla will have a tough competitor in India: Google’s Android One, which aims to offer fully-fledged smartphones for about $100 a piece.

“It’s been a year of both tremendous growth and exciting opportunity for Firefox OS. As the only truly open-source platform, Firefox OS has unlocked users, developers and industry participants from the mobile market’s closed systems and content gatekeepers. Now, we are expanding that pursuit across new regions, handheld devices, and soon into other areas of our users’ lives as new form factors begin to take shape,” declared Andreas Gal, Chief Technology Officer at Mozilla.

source: Mozilla

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posted on 17 Jul 2014, 10:10

1. Iodine (Posts: 1395; Member since: 19 Jun 2014)

End of android dominance ?

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 10:24 6

3. Duketytz (Posts: 534; Member since: 28 Nov 2013)

Wow! It's funny how you say end of Android dominance before even looking at how their phones sell. Too quick to pass your judgement man:)

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 11:31 4

6. Iodine (Posts: 1395; Member since: 19 Jun 2014)

I am asking, not saying.

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 22:37

13. a_tumiwa (Posts: 379; Member since: 16 Mar 2012)

its hard to replace android at least for next 2 years... i have Zte Open C with firefox os 1.3, its still not smooth even enough though a dual core cpu is considered not a low spec , so i think they have a hard time to make it smooth for low spec phone , plus the distribution of this phone is too slow , i myself needed to import it
but its common problem for new OS before going mature, when i tried BB10 and WP 8 (i believe sailfish OS too), they also need some improvement

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 10:29 2

4. sgodsell (Posts: 4897; Member since: 16 Mar 2013)

I don't see it ending Android dominance. Its not like they have a ton of apps or the features and options that Android currently has. Not to mention tablets, Android wear, Chromecast, Chrome browser. For that matter Chromebooks are soon going to be able to run Android apps. With that said Firefox has a ways to go.

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 14:23

10. sks1969 (Posts: 91; Member since: 04 Mar 2012)

The App craze is soon going to end my friend. everything will be driven from the browser/html 5 soon. Firefox OS is encouraging developers, people like you and me to create content. that is why it is being sold dirt cheap. There is no JVM on it. It is completely native. it processes javascript faster than chrome running on JVM.

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 22:03

12. sgodsell (Posts: 4897; Member since: 16 Mar 2013)

HTML 5 is great, I know because I work with it. But I also see what Google is doing with Android as well. For instance. Android wear is very unique in the sense you can take and existing app and add a few lines of wear code to your existing phone or tablet app. Now your existing app will not only run on the phone or tablet, but now it will support and run on Android wear as well. Naturally you can make stand alone wear apps as well. Just like you can make stand alone html 5 apps that will run on Firefox OS and Chrome.
With all that said Firefox has to have more devices and sell them in more regions if they want to get more developers on their side. I wanted to get one to try it out, but they don't sell any in Canada.

posted on 18 Jul 2014, 00:25

14. sks1969 (Posts: 91; Member since: 04 Mar 2012)

Good points, the phone is targetted for the country I live in, but it is yet to retail here, I like the fact that they are targetting the right markets where population and talent is more. The other thing they have as a advantage is, don't have to please carriers, bloggers etc.. They only need to worry about content creators, developers and of course customers.

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 10:23 2

2. Duketytz (Posts: 534; Member since: 28 Nov 2013)

That orange looks delicious:)

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 11:03 1

5. ArtSim98 (Posts: 3535; Member since: 21 Dec 2012)

RIP to the new Malaysian Airlines passengers... MA is not having a good time...

posted on 18 Jul 2014, 04:11

15. elite1dal (Posts: 5; Member since: 18 Jul 2014)

Maaaan,here in Ukraine this was shocker...It's damn crazy! They can't stop war in Eastern Ukraine plus these bastards killed innocent people! The World driving in Hell

posted on 18 Jul 2014, 04:17

16. ArtSim98 (Posts: 3535; Member since: 21 Dec 2012)

Yeah it's plain horrible... I can't understand what's so hard to just keep everything in peace. No need to constantly kill innocent people...

posted on 17 Jul 2014, 12:05

8. joey_sfb (Posts: 6624; Member since: 29 Mar 2012)

Any unique advantage for fire fox OS? Take a deep pocket like Google to bring Android to become the leading mobile OS.