Can Sony sex up Firefox?

Will Sony bring the sexy factor to Firefox OS, Mozilla's fledgling operating system for smartphones?

 

A report on PC World said Sony may soon release a premium smartphone running Firefox OS —and may be one of several manufacturers to do so.

 

“Sony is known for quality and user experience. So they are targeting for very, very high (end). We are in joint discussions on the kind of device and what’s the product,” PC World quoted Li Gong, Mozilla’s senior vice president for mobile devices, as saying.

 

Li added Mozilla is talking with more on developing higher-end phones using Firefox OS, which is based on HTML5, a programming language in wide use.

 

HTML5 promises to make it easy for developers to make apps for the OS.

 

PC World quoted Li as saying Sony, LG, ZTE, Huawei and Alcatel are working with Mozilla to develop Firefox OS phones, while 18 telecom operators want to use it.

 

“The low-end entry point devices are good point to enter the market. But that doesn’t mean we can’t scale up or we don’t want to scale. We do want to scale up. But an ecosystem takes some time to build,” he said.

 

Firefox OS is one of the newer mobile operating systems going up against juggernauts Android and iOS. Initially, it was offered on entry-level phones.

 

Li said the first Firefox OS handsets may arrive in select markets in Europe and South America this July.

 

He also said that with the initial industry support, Mozilla is confident Firefox OS can become a third major smartphone OS, with transparency as a major asset.

 

“I can tell you there will be a third one (mobile OS) and it’s going to be us ... It’s because we are the only company that takes a pure approach. We are entirely open. Not only open source, but open process. No price, no nothing,” he said.

 

He said that while Google claims Android is open source, its development is closed to telecom operators and hardware makers.

 

Late entry

 

PC World said analysts are skeptical about Firefox OS' chances of making an impact on the mobile landscape at least in the short run.

 

It enters a market with open-source mobile operating systems such as Ubuntu and Samsung-backed Tizen OS. — TJD, GMA News