Mozilla continues with Firefox OS for phones as carrier collaboration ends

Mozilla continues to develop its Firefox OS mobile operating system. It previously announced it would stop collaborating with providers, but now says it will continue to work with manufacturers.

One of Mozilla’s top people says on Twitter that Mozilla will target developers, designers and advanced users with a system that focuses on the UX of smartphones. Presumably it means that Mozilla is focusing on flashing existing Android smartphones with Firefox OS. Last month, a Developer Preview of Firefox OS 2.5 came out as an Android app, and Mozilla may want to further develop Firefox OS in that direction.

Mozilla said last week that it will stop supplying devices to carriers. The browser maker collaborated with providers such as Telefonica to market Firefox OS, targeting the market for low-end smartphones. The cheapest models received price tags of under 30 euros, although there are also more expensive models. There has been no real sales success with Firefox OS. Mozilla wanted to gain a large market share through providers, but failed.

Some of the people who worked on Firefox OS have gone to start-up company Acadine, which is working on Firefox OS fork H5OS. At the moment, H5OS still looks a lot like Firefox OS, but that could change.

Firefox OS has been around for several years and Mozilla created it to encourage the creation of apps based on open web standards. In addition to Firefox OS for smartphones, there are also versions for smart TVs from, for example, Panasonic and internet-of-things devices. Mozilla continues to do that.