In an ongoing event MWC(Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, Spain. Mozilla focus on its bet that low-end smartphones will give Firefox OS a start in the crowded mobile market, announcing partnership that will bring $25 smartphones to large number of people who can't afford high-end models.
Mozilla stricked a deal with Chinese chip designer Spreadtrum Communications. This smartphones will arrive in India and Indonesia where the demand of low-budget phone is very high.
One company that plans to make and promote the phones is Indonesia-based Polytron. And Indian carriers Telkomsel and Indosat plan to sell the devices.
"We're working with them to break through the $50 barrier, which is a hard," Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich. "This is going to be for a set of [sales] channels in Asia that do not involve operators," the carriers that in other parts of the world dominate distribution.
The phone may have low-end configuration then most android and iOS smartphones. But Mitchell Baker, chair of the Mozilla Foundation, said at a press conference in MWC that the devices have to be judged by a different, lower-end standard.
"Imagine the phone in your pocket is a feature phone. Imagine, when you go buy one of these devices, that every euro is precious to you," Baker said. Looking at "the richness and power we're able to offer to this market, you'll be astonished. Then imagine where we can go from there."
Mozilla has found itself little less in the mobile OS market by pursuing its low-end strategy, with the first phones debuting in countries such as Hungary, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Greece. Mozilla, a nonprofit organization, hopes to use the browser-based operating system to lower the barriers that today keep people locked into ecosystems linking hardware, OS, app store, services, content, and apps. In the same show Mozilla also expanded parternship with Alcatel and ZTE. They debuted models with dual-core processors and larger-screen options and Firefox OS without raising the price.
Firefox OS v1.1 is the latest version of the HTML5 based operating system which comes with Twitter and Facebook. HERE Maps is available with offline feature. The update to version 1.1 adds MMS capabilities. Adaptive App Search lets you type in something that you are looking for and find out which apps will give it to you. One can load the app instantly for one time use and discard it, or install it for future use. One can download apps from Firefox OS market.
"The positive market reception of the first Firefox OS smartphones demonstrates that people like the user experience and openness we’re building with Firefox OS. We continue to enhance Firefox OS to deliver the best experience for the many people around the world buying their first smartphones. We are looking forward to seeing the response to the next round of Firefox OS launches."-Jay Sullivan, COO, Mozilla
Version 1.1 of Firefox OS also allows you to import your contacts from Gmail, Hotline, Facebook and from your SIM card while the QWERTY keyboard now offers auto-correction. Search your music by artist, group or song title and more than 15 languages are now supported.
Alcatel's The One Touch Fire S will take Firefox OS to new heights, a quad-core processor and support for faster new 4G LTE networks and Alcatel also showed off an early version of a planned new tablet, the One Touch Fire 7.
At Mozilla's event, Huawei also announced its first Firefox OS phone known as the Y300. It comes with a dual-core processor, 512MB RAM, 4-inch 800x480 display, a 5-megapixels rear camera, 0.3 megapixel front facing camera and Firefox OS v1.1. No news about when the Y300 model will be in market.
Arriving at the show are two ZTE phones and four Alcatel phones:
The ZTE Open C has a 4-inch, 800x480 display, a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, 3G networking; 1,400mAh battery, 512MB RAM, 2GB flash storage, and 3-megapixel camera. The Spanish carrier Telefonica will sell it in Venezuela and Uruguay in the second quarter of 2014, ZTE said.
The ZTE Open II has a 3.5-inch 480x320 display, dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 3G networking; 1,150mAh battery, 256MB RAM, 2GB flash storage, and 2-megapixel camera. Telefonica will sell this model in six countries
The Alcatel One Touch Fire S, the company's highest-end model, has 4G LTE networking, a 4.5-inch 960x540 IPS screen, a quad-core 1.2GHz processor, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, and 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and support for near-field communications (NFC).
The Alcatel One Touch Fire E is a step down. It's also got a 4.5-inch 960x540 screen, but not with in-plane switching, and its 1.2GHz processor is only a dual-core model. Its rear-facing camera has a 5-megapixel resolution, but its front-facing camera is only 0.3MP.
The Alcatel One Touch Fire C is the clear successor to 2013's model. Its 3.5-inch 480x320 screen is the same size, but it now is accompanied by a dual-core 1.2GHz processor. Its camera is pretty low-end, just a 0.3-megapixel model.
Google is pushing toward lower-end phones, with Android 4.4 memory-saving techniques that fit KitKat into phones with 512MB of RAM. Firefox is pushing, too. It uses the same ZRAM memory compression technique to halve its memory requirement to 128MB of memory, Eich said.
Alcatel is also pushing Firefox OS tablet, The One Touch Fire 7, into the market. Alcatel plans to reproduce a low-budget Firefox OS tablet. It's got a 7-inch 960x540 display, dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 0.3-megapixel front and rear cameras, a 9.9mm thickness, and 285g weight.
Mozilla itself will sell phones: Firefox OS Flame. It's got a Qualcomm 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, a 4.5-inch 854x480 screen, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 3G networking, 8GB of flash storage, NFC, a 1,800mAh battery, 256MB - 1GB RAM.
Mozilla's main focus is on smartphones, but it's encouraging others to help push Firefox OS into tablets. Via's 7-inch Vixen 7 and Foxconn's 10-inch InFocus are available to developers who are interested in the area.
