Mozilla To Release Its Own OS For Smartphones

Mozilla made the announcement at the ‘Mobile World Congress’ in Barcelona Spain and assured the new mobile operating system will be available in the summer of this year.

Mozilla said its ‘Firefox OS’ will be a direct competitor to Apple (iOS) and Google (Android).

Mozilla-director Gary Kovacs said: “Last year we started on an ambitions plan to free the mobile market. Mobile developers have been supporting us from the beginning.”

‘Geekphone’, a small smartphone producer in Spain, is building the test phones for Firefox OS. Mozilla says that already larger mobile companies have pledged support for the new mobile OS, including ZTE, LG, Huawei, Alcatel and the US technology company Qualcomm.

Mozilla’s mobile OS will operate just like its browser and developed under ‘open source’ software. That allows smartphone owners to access the source code and modify it to their hearts content and add their own features – or remove them.

Mozilla is especially focusing on ‘up and coming’ cell phone markets and as such will introduce its first smartphone with Firefox OS in the summer in predominantly Latin and Eastern European countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Spain, Venezuela, Serbia, Hongaria, Montenegro and Poland.