Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device
At Mobile World Congress, which begins in three days, Mozilla will finally take the wraps off the Mozilla Marketplace and allow developers to submit their open web technology (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) apps.
Context & Ripple Effects
Mozilla's mobile effort had previously been framed around a Mozilla app for the iPhone; the LG partnership broadens that ambition from software distributed through another company's device to a device strategy of its own.
The immediate vehicle is Mozilla Marketplace, which is set to accept apps built with HTML5, JavaScript and CSS at Mobile World Congress. That gives the LG effort a developer distribution proposition rather than positioning the hardware as a standalone challenge.
First-order effects
- LG gains a Mozilla-backed device proposition, while Mozilla gains a hardware partner for bringing its web-app model to mobile users.
- Developers can submit HTML5, JavaScript and CSS applications to Mozilla Marketplace, creating an alternative route to the Apple and Google-controlled mobile software ecosystems.
Second-order effects
- Apple and Google face competition centered on web technologies that can reduce the importance of platform-specific app development for participating developers.
- LG's participation makes device makers a more important battleground for Mozilla: hardware partners can differentiate through the marketplace and web stack rather than only handset specifications.
Third-order effects
- If device partners and developers adopt the model, mobile competition shifts toward whether web standards can provide a sufficiently portable application layer across devices.
- The effort is part of a broader contest over interoperability: control of the mobile experience can move from proprietary app stores toward the standards and marketplaces that connect developers with hardware partners.
The trend: Mobile platforms are becoming a contest between vertically controlled app ecosystems and web-based stacks designed to make applications more portable across devices.