BARCELONA - It's happening! Mozilla and a slew of mobile operators announced tonight at Mobile World Congress that the first Firefox OS phones will launch this year in nine countries, with others to follow. The U.S. will probably come in 2014, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs said.
Rather, the first Firefox OS phones, built by Alcatel, LG, and ZTE, will appear in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela, Mozilla said. Phones from Huawei will follow later, as will other country rollouts.
Mozilla showed off two phones at the event: the Alcatel One Touch Fire and the ZTE Fire. All the demos were done on the ZTE model, though, and even that wasn't entirely functional. Still, though, we will have an in-depth, eyes-on preview of Firefox OS on the ZTE Fire shortly.
Deutsche Telekom said the Alcatel One Touch Fire will go on sale in Poland this summer, with more Eastern European countries following in 2013. Telefonica added that it plans to launch in all of its markets by 2014.
In the U.S., Sprint has expressed support, but didn't come to the press conference or announce a device.
"Most of [Firefox OS's] growth is going to come from the emerging world," Kovacs said. "That's today where the Firefox OS devices will largely be aimed. As follow-on versions come, we'll ascend to the rest of the world and to different levels of consumer," he said.
For Users, Or For Carriers?
Kovacs loaded down the Firefox announcement with rousing, consumer-centric language. "The Internet should not be controlled by one or two companies, ever!" he called. Clearly targeting Apple and Google, he said, "we fundamentally don't believe that you should have one or two companies that approve every piece of content that you and I engage with."
But in a Q&A afterwards, this idea of a "phone for the users" quickly became a "phone for the carriers." Carriers will be given complete control over Firefox OS phones. They'll be able to skin or alter the OS to their tastes. The preferred payment method on the OS will be carrier billing, and every carrier will be allowed to dictate its own revenue share.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann offered up a rather weak defense of how carrier supremacy somehow means consumer freedom. "I don't think it's about giving power to operators; it's about creating another successful ecosystem, and if we don't do it together, it's not going to work," he said.
A Very Webby App Store
Since a great mobile OS needs a great app store, Firefox also announced its phones will launch with Firefox Marketplace, an app store for the packaged Web apps which its phones will run.
Firefox Marketplace seems like the "app stores" built into Web browsers: a way to consume Web sites as apps using convenient bookmarks. Apps will be stored on phones, so they'll work offline, and Firefox made sure to spotlight popular names: Accuweather, Cut the Rope, Where's My Perry?, EA, Pulse News and Twitter, for instance.
Firefox's store won't be the only way to buy apps on the phones, either. Third parties and application providers will also be able to sell apps themselves if they choose. That may sound like a security nightmare, but Firefox will build on its own reputation for quick security updates, which carriers will push through promptly, reps said.
"I expect many marketplaces to flourish, some run by network operators, and developers can distribute their apps directly to users," Kovacs said.