Mozilla Firefox OS aims to enhance the user experience by powering the platform with HTML 5 which will include a whole lot of games, apps, calling and messaging features. Mozilla says the new OS has kept the unnecessary middleware layers between the web experience and the underlying hardware at bay, making it ideally suited for low-end smartphones. Mozilla CEO Gary Kovac said in a statement that billions of users are expected to come online for the first time in the coming years, it is important to deliver a compelling smartphone experience that anyone can use. The first Firefox OS handsets will hit Brazil in 2013. Two Chinese manufacturers, ZTE and TCL Communications Technology have been brought on broad to manufacture the Firefox OS handsets, to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon system-on-a-chip (SoC) processors. Mozilla is not the only player in the OS based web technologies game, Google has been there for a long time now offering a boot-to-browser experience with Chrome OS. The Google OS is not only free but also runs effortlessly on low-end hardware, which raise the stakes for Mozilla. Mozilla novelty is HTML5, the OS is entirely powered by the web standard, app developers can create HTML5 apps that can beat phone capabilities typically only available to native apps on iOS and Android. Other carriers collaborating the with Mozilla’s new venture are Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, Telenor, Etisalat, and Smart.
