Outgoing Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs has confirmed smartphones running Firefox OS will launch in five countries in June, before reaching 11 more by the end of the year.
Speaking at the D: Dive Into Mobile Conference, Kovacs said Brazil, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela would be the first to receive the platform. The five were among a number of countries mentioned by the company during Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February, along with Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro and Serbia.
However, the US will have to wait until at least 2014 to get its hands on Firefox OS, which is not surprising given Mozilla is targeting emerging markets and lower-end hardware rather than the premium smartphones favoured by the American market. There is no indication as to when it might be released in the UK.
He has likened this to the achievement of the Firefox browser, which forced the adoption of certain web standards and helped create a browser market that has never been more competitive.
Chinese manufacturer ZTE revealed the first Firefox OS based smartphone, the ZTE Open, at MWC, but Kovacs admitted the first wave of devices was more about getting the platform out there and encourage developers to create apps. Innovation would come later, he said.
It was announced last week that Kovacs is to step down at the not-for-profit organisation later this year. He joined Mozilla in November 2010 after spells at IBM, SAP and Macromedia (later Adobe).
Are you a Firefox enthusiast? Take our quiz!
Targetting AWS, Microsoft? British competition regulator soon to announce “behavioural” remedies for cloud sector
Move to Elon Musk rival. Former senior executive at X joins Sam Altman's venture formerly…
Bitcoin price rises towards $100,000, amid investor optimism of friendlier US regulatory landscape under Donald…
Judge Kaplan praises former FTX CTO Gary Wang for his co-operation against Sam Bankman-Fried during…
Explore the future of work with the Silicon In Focus Podcast. Discover how AI is…
Executive hits out at the DoJ's “staggering proposal” to force Google to sell off its…
View Comments
Firefox OS development is going on
http://www.bestinnovativesource.com/2013/04/16/firefox-os-is-going-to-launch-in-5-countries/