Mozilla CEO: Android, iOS leave lots of room for Firefox OS
Mozilla's browser-based OS can win a place among the next 2 billion people arriving on the Net, Gary Kovacs argues. And about attracting app developers, he quipped, “There's a Web for that.” — BARCELONA, Spain …
Context & Ripple Effects
Mozilla has framed mobile as a Web-as-the-platform strategy since 2012, and supporters later cast Firefox OS as an open mobile alternative. Its February 2013 launch announcement added commitments from 18 mobile operators, giving Kovacs’s argument a distribution base rather than leaving it as a browser-company aspiration.
The immediate strategic question is whether web apps and Web Activities can make Firefox OS useful without requiring developers to build a separate native ecosystem. Same-day coverage of initial carriers, apps, and a planned Twitter client shows that Mozilla’s launch case is being tested across both distribution and developer support.
First-order effects
- Mozilla and its operator backers can pitch Firefox OS to new internet users as an open-web device choice alongside Android and iOS.
- App developers gain a route to Firefox OS through web technologies and Web Activities rather than a wholly separate native application stack.
Second-order effects
- Mobile operators supporting Firefox OS gain a bargaining and product-positioning alternative to handset ecosystems controlled by Android and iOS.
- Mozilla’s ability to attract recognizable web-app support becomes central: early app availability will determine whether the open-web proposition translates into a viable handset experience.
Third-order effects
- If operator-backed web platforms attract sufficient developer support, mobile competition shifts partly from proprietary app stores toward browser standards and interoperable web capabilities.
- Firefox OS is a test of whether carriers can help sustain a third mobile ecosystem by backing an open platform rather than merely distributing the two established ones.
The trend: Mobile platforms are contesting whether the web can serve as the application layer for a carrier-backed alternative to native app ecosystems.