Mozilla announced it would rename its Boot 2 Gecko (B2G) HTML5 mobile operating system to Firefox OS, and that ZTE and TCL (under the Alcatel brand) would manufacture the first devices running Firefox OS using Qualcomm Snapdragon Processors. The first devices should be available early 2013, at first in Brazil through Vivo, Telefónica’s commercial brand.
The company also said that telecom operators such as Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor are planning to sell Firefox OS based smartphones.
The platform is said to be optimized for entry-level smartphones thanks to the removal of unnecessary middleware layers among other things. This should allow mobile operators to provide low-cost handsets with “richer experiences” for the developing markets.
Firefox OS will be fully open source and the reference implementation of the required Web APIs is being submitted to W3C for standardization.
Internally, the project still appears to be referred to as Boot to Gecko and you can build and run B2G in the emulator, Samsung Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy S2 or Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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This is reminding me of the 8bit computer wars, when Commodore, Sinclair, Apple, IBM, Atari, TI, and various others were vying for position.
Personally I can’t see a HTML OS succeeding when technology is advancing in mobile devices that makes small memory and few cpu cycles less an issue.
Linux is still very slow to move into a position that has to happen for it to remain valid in scope. (Please don’t quote Android as Linux, as that project is Googles means to take over proper Linux.)
WEB APPS are simply companies manoeuvring to secure users for their paid or future fee cloud systems.