Many people in emerging markets will experience the Internet for the first time this year, and most of them will do so on a smartphone. For many, the gateway to the web will not be Android or Safari; it will be Firefox OS. Firefox creator Mozilla is commmitted to an open, HTML 5-based OS that is easily accessible to developers and consumers. It’s working with OEMs who are making low-end smartphones for emerging markets.
Processors based on ARM’s architecture will power most of those entry-level phones, so the chip giant has a strong interest in the Firefox OS. “It’s a smartphone OS that’s actually based around browser technology,” said ARM’s lead mobile strategist James Bruce at Mobile World Congress. “So obviously you have the traditional browser, Firefox, that you know so well. But what [Mozilla] has done is actually written a complete application environment that runs HTML 5.”
“When you go to web pages, for example, if you go to your favorite newspaper, you first of all go to the web newspaper, but then you can actually download the web page as an application so your web becomes the app and the app becomes the web, so it’s really going to be interesting to see how developers and consumers take advantage of this.”
