Mozilla today announced that it will soon launch the first smartphones running its Firefox OS.
Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica will be the first carriers to sell the Firefox OS gadgets, the Alcatel One Touch Fire (left) and ZTE Open.
Telefonica will begin offering the ZTE Open on July 2 for 69 Euros, which includes 30 Euros in credits for pre-paid customers.
"We believe that smartphones need to be more open and that the Web is the platform for making this possible," Luis Miguel Gilpérez, CEO of Telefónica España, said in a statement. "Consumers should not be locked to any one system but have the choice to consume the content they want and the flexibility to be able to take it with them when they change devices. This first open web device marks a significant milestone in making this possible. This is just the beginning as we plan to bring a wide range of Firefox OS devices to our customers."
The ZTE Open includes a 3.5-inch touch screen, 256MB of RAM, and a 3.2-megpixel camera. A 4GB micro SD card is also included.
Deutsche Telekom's Claudia Nemat, meanwhile, said the carrier will first offer Firefox OS devices in Poland, but did not provide an exact launch date.
"The launch of the first Firefox smartphones in Europe is an important step on the way to more innovation and to more competition between the different ecosystems. We rely on open platforms because we want to create freedom of choice on behalf of our customers," she said.
"The launch of Firefox OS marks an incredibly exciting time for the Web. Firefox OS powers the first smartphones built entirely on Web technologies and will stimulate an inspiring new wave of innovation for the Web," Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's COO, said in a statement. "We are proud to deliver an experience for first time smartphone users that will delight them and really put the power of the Web in people's hands."
Firefox OS comes out of Mozilla's Boot to Gecko project, which was first announced in July 2011. As Johnathan Nightingale, senior director of Firefox engineering, told PCMag at last year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), Firefox OS is intended to do away with the "walled garden" approach of today's modern mobile operating systems, like Apple's iOS and Google's Android.
Firefox OS was officially unveiled in July 2012. It's expected to launch on commercial phones built by Alcatel, LG, and ZTE this summer in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Serbia, Spain, and Venezuela. Phones from Huawei will follow later, as will other country rollouts. The U.S. probably won't see a Mozilla Firefox phone until 2014.
The company released Firefox OS developer phones in April, and at Computex last month, Mozilla and Foxconn announced a partnership, and showed off a tablet prototype running Firefox OS.
For more, see PCMag's hands on with the Alcatel One Touch Fire and the ZTE Open (slideshow above), previously known as the ZTE Fire, from this year's MWC.