Mozilla Firefox Mobile Operating System Coming Soon

Mozilla plans on making a splash in the mobile market this summer with the release of its very own Firefox operating system (OS). It's the first time ever that Mozilla has ventured into this highly-competitive sector of the consumer technology market.

Mozilla says the Firefox OS will be a smartphone operating system based entirely on HTML 5, which is widely considered the most advanced web browser programming language.

HTML 5 Could Present Problems

The advantage to using HTML 5 is that there are many developers willing to build HTML 5-based applications. The downside is that HTML 5-based products can suffer from serious performance and stability issues. (Source: forbes.com)

Mozilla, which is a nonprofit organization, says that the Firefox OS will be released this summer in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

It remains unclear when (or if) the Firefox mobile OS will come to North America.

LG, Huawei, Sony on Board

What we do know is that Mozilla is working with some of the world's biggest mobile phone manufacturers -- including LG, Huawei, Alcatel, and ZTE -- in preparation for a summer 2013 launch.

Japanese tech firm Sony has also revealed that it is exploring the possibility of releasing a phone running the Firefox OS.

"Our engineers are now working with Firefox OS Mobile and HTML 5 -- evolving technologies which show great potential," noted Bob Ishida, Sony Mobile Communications Chief Executive. (Source: latimes.com)

But Mozilla isn't just planning to release a Firefox OS -- the firm also has plans to launch a Firefox Marketplace, which will provide users of the mobile OS with access to various applications.

Mozilla has indicated that those apps will give users mobile access to social networking services like Twitter and Facebook. There will also be games from EA Games and Disney Mobile Games.

For its part, Twitter says it's pleased about the partnership. In a recent blog post the company noted that it's "excited about the future of Firefox OS," and that it looks "forward to phones shipping with support for our new Twitter app." (Source: latimes.com)