Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs says that he believes his company will have specifically designed Firefox OS phones on the US Market by 2014. Firefox is one of the leading open source browser companies in the world, beating out a power like Internet Explorer when it comes to popularity.
While Mozilla is on seemingly stable footing when it comes to the browser market, the smartphone market is something entirely new for the company. A Firefox OS for smartphones has actually been in the works for a while.
A Firefox phone has been rumored for quite a while as well, but The Verge reports that Kovacs is openly talking about a release date for the first time. Kovacs says that the Mozilla smatphone will be launching in Europe this summer.
Once the company is able to gauge just how succesful a launch in Europe and other countries is, Mozilla will launch in the US. The real question is what carriers a Firefox smartphone would have here in the United States.
Kovacs hinted that the company had carriers lined up, but wouldn’t say which ones. CNet confirms that Mozilla seems to have some serious support outside the United States. Carriers like Telefonica, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, and Telstra are on board.
Looking closer at the list of companies, there is one US company on the list. Sprint is the only carrier operating in the US that has signed on with Mozilla. Alcatel, ZTE, LG Electronics, and Huawei have all signed on to make handsets for the Firefox OS. Qualcomm is apparently the chipmaker for these phones.
Should the Mozilla Firefox Smartphone catch on and gain popularity, one has to wonder how Sprint could leverage its singular support in the US. Could this be a repeat of what happened with AT&T and the iPhone?
Will Sprint find people coming specifically to them as the sole supplier of these Mozilla Firefox phones?