Do we need another mobile OS? Mozilla says Yes

April 03, 2012


It seemed that all the tickets to the mobile OS market have been sold to Android, iOS, Windows and Blackberry (if it survives). And the unsuccessful attempts of HP and Samsung to enter this market have convinced everybody that the world doesn't need another mobile OS. But there will always be fanatics with unusual ideas and motivation that can change everything. Recently Mozilla (the Firefox developer) presented a prototype of its new mobile platform, codenamed Boot to Gecko (B2G). It is designed for smartphones and tablets and based on Firefox browser, running on top of the Linux kernel. B2G supposes that all mobile applications will run inside the browser. Remind Google's Chrome OS, yeah? But the Chrome OS was developed for desktops, not mobile devices. Besides, the internal conflict between Chrome OS and Android doesn't let Chrome OS to develop on mobile devices.

And Mozilla - is the company vitally interested in the development of Web-based technologies. Therefore, the B2G developers announced that they are struggling not for money but for the Web and promise to create a free OS for mobile WEB/HTML5 apps. How it will differ from a standard browser in iOS or Android? The B2G browser will interact directly with the phone functions (such as bluetooth and file system) and mobile operator services (e.g. SMS). So, mobile web-applications will have the same capabilities as native apps.

It's no surprise that this Mozilla's project was at once supported by Adobe. Because Adobe doesn't like all these native apps and wants to own the HTML5 development tools market. But besides it - the maker of mobile chips Qualcomm and the third world largest mobile operator Telefonica also decided to participate in the project. So, the B2G has pretty good arguments to succeed.

See also: