Mozilla has announced the names of the 18 mobile carriers that have pledged their commitment to the company’s new Firefox OS, which will power the world’s first Open Web devices.
These mobile carriers are: América Móvil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefónica, Telenor, TMN and VimpelCom. According to Mozilla, the first wave of Firefox OS devices will be available to consumers in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela, while additional markets will be announced soon after. Mozilla is also working with Alcatel, Huawei, LG, and ZTE to bring the first Firefox OS device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.
“Firefox OS offers the performance, personalization and price you want in a smartphone and a beautiful, clean, intuitive, personalized and easy-to-use experience. Firefox OS includes all the things people need from a smartphone out of the box – calls, messaging, email, camera and more – as well as the things you wish a smartphone offered, like built-in cost controls, social features with Facebook and Twitter, location-based services, the Firefox Web browser, new ability to discover one-time use and downloadable apps, Firefox Marketplace and much more.” Mozilla explained.
The Firefox Marketplace is similar to the Windows Store, in that it offers apps in categories such as Games, News, Media, Business, and Productivity, and have apps that are tired to you and your online identity. These apps can be taken across devices and platforms. Mozilla plans on previewing the Firefox Marketplace on Firefox for Android Aurora, and will offer it alongside the Firefox OS phones that launch later this year.
