Ok. Just to be clear, I am not advocating any kind of move on our part to
support BTG. It's just something to keep an eye on.
Phil
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Tomasz Finc <tfinc(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
I've talked to mozilla about Wikipedia + Boot to
Gecko a couple of times.
Happy to fill you in on the detail Phil. I already have ready contacts
there.
We passed on it for now as we had higher priorities.
On Jul 5, 2012 11:24 PM, "Philip Chang" <pchang(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Thanks, Amir.
>
> I looked into this some more and started talking with folks at Mozilla.
> I guess you're one too!
>
> They have been calling this Boot to Gecko but the news story didn't use
> that name so I didn't make the association.
>
> The current plan is to focus on the Telefonica Brazil release and take it
> from there. I was concerned that developing an OS involves a lot of stuff
> beyond web browsing, and even if a company pulls that off (think WebOS)
> there is no guarantee of success.
>
> It turns out Mozilla and others have been very active on device-level
> APIs and that will make things feasible.
>
> Let's see if they get a phone out in Q1.
>
> Phil
> On Jul 5, 2012 8:16 PM, "Amir E. Aharoni"
<amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il>
> wrote:
>
>> Mozilla's idea is to do it, as must as possible, with nothing but web
>> technologies, so there would be little-to-none "native" code, but only
>> HTML5 / JS / CSS. A lot of ideology is involved in it - it would be a
>> lot easier for everybody to simply accept WebKit as the de-facto
>> standard, but de-facto standards is something that Mozilla doesn't
>> like.
>>
>> Of course, I'm biased, because I'm a volunteer Mozilla Rep.
>>
>>
>> 2012/7/5 Philip Chang <pchang(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
>> > Rupert, thanks very much for sharing this.
>> >
>> > This smells a bit like Symbian, which originally was motivated by the
>> desire
>> > to avoid dominance by any single evil empire.
>> >
>> > However, I seriously wonder if Mozilla has what it takes to do
>> something as
>> > ambitious as a phone OS. I've known of projects with hundreds of
>> developers
>> > trying to create just a decent mobile web browser - that failed.
>> >
>> > It would be great if anyone out there has any insights about this - in
>> > particular, rumors about progress at Mozilla.
>> >
>> > Phil
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:34 AM, rupert THURNER <
>> rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica SA (TEF), the former Spanish phone monopoly reeling from
>> >> plummeting sales at home, is plotting to claw back control from
>> Google Inc.
>> >> (GOOG) in Latin America.
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica, luring first-time smartphone buyers in Brazil, is
>> designing a
>> >> handset software system that is freely available to network operators
>> and
>> >> manufacturers, similar to Google’s Android, the world’s biggest
>> platform.
>> >> For network carriers, it’s a chance to have a say over what consumers
>> see,
>> >> use and buy via their smartphones, lost to Google and Apple Inc.
>> (AAPL) when
>> >> such handsets became must-have devices.
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica has teamed up with Mozilla Corp., the company whose Firefox
>> >> program challenged the dominance of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Web
>> browser.
>> >> This week, six additional companies, including Germany’s Deutsche
>> Telekom AG
>> >> (DTE) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), said they will use the platform in
>> other
>> >> countries, such as Poland. While Android is free, operators currently
>> must
>> >> accept that the biggest search engine controls the software code and
>> makes
>> >> advertising money from pushing users to take its mapping, e-mail and
>> search
>> >> services.
>> >>
>> >> “We don’t like the fact that one part of the value chain of our
>> business
>> >> is tightly controlled,” Carlos Domingo, director of product
>> development at
>> >> Telefonica’s digital unit, said in an interview. “In the case of the
>> >> emerging countries it’s worse, because it becomes a monopoly by
>> Google.”
>> >>
>> >> Tailored Services
>> >>
>> >> By having access to the software and hardware from the beginning,
>> >> Telefonica will be able to tailor additional services for users in
>> >> fast-growing emerging markets in Latin America where many subscribers
>> are
>> >> buying their first smartphone. Every second U.S. consumer and 37
>> percent of
>> >> western Europeans already own a smartphone.
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica, Spain’s biggest phone company, will bring the first
>> Firefox
>> >> handset to Brazil as smartphone growth in South and Central America is
>> >> soaring, with annual shipments climbing to 160 million devices by the
>> end of
>> >> 2015 from 31.2 million in 2011, according to estimates from Ovum, a
>> >> London-based telecommunications industry research firm.
>> >>
>> >> While Google has a head start, Telefonica is racing to compete,
>> targeting
>> >> “double-digit market” share for its low- priced Android challenger in
>> Brazil
>> >> by the end of 2015, Domingo said.
>> >>
>> >> Slipped Deadline
>> >>
>> >> The deadline has already slipped. With its first phone initially due
>> at
>> >> the end of this year, Telefonica said before its investor conference
>> in
>> >> London today that the first handsets built by Chinese manufacturers
>> ZTE
>> >> Corp. (763) and TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd. (2618)
>> will now
>> >> be offered from early 2013.
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica is in talks with six additional handset makers, Matthew
>> Key,
>> >> the head of the company’s digital unit, said at the investor meeting.
>> >>
>> >> “We’re overly reliant on Android and that’s not a strategically strong
>> >> position to be in,” he said.
>> >>
>> >> To persuade Latin American consumers to upgrade to smartphones, and
>> not
>> >> take an Android device, the devices will need to be priced at about
>> $100,
>> >> Domingo said.
>> >>
>> >> Deutsche Telekom is in talks to offer the handsets in its eastern
>> European
>> >> markets, Thomas Kiessling, the company’s chief innovation officer,
>> said in
>> >> an interview, adding that the phones would cost about 80 euros ($100)
>> to 100
>> >> euros.
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica’s smartphone software drive, overseen by Telefonica Chief
>> >> Executive Officer Cesar Alierta, marks the latest attempt by
>> operators to
>> >> build out rival services and applications and convince investors that
>> they
>> >> are more than pipes that facilitate the surging demand for data-hungry
>> >> devices. Their previous efforts to build app stores, send calls and
>> messages
>> >> over the Web, and develop payment systems, have been abandoned or
>> brought
>> >> out long after rivals have stolen a march.
>> >>
>> >> Failed Efforts
>> >>
>> >> “We’ve also been on board of other operator consortiums that have
>> failed,”
>> >> Domingo said, adding that these joint projects were never “as open as
>> they
>> >> claimed to be.”
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica, which has net financial debt of 57 billion euros, in May
>> >> reported an 8.8 percent drop in first-quarter operating profit after
>> it lost
>> >> customers in its home market to discounters. The shares dropped 2.6
>> percent
>> >> to 10.21 euros in Madrid. The stock has fallen 24 percent this year,
>> making
>> >> it the worst performer in the 19-company Bloomberg Europe
>> Telecommunication
>> >> Services Index.
>> >>
>> >> Telefonica today predicted its digital business to generate annual
>> sales
>> >> of about 5 billion euros by 2015. Revenues of Telefonica Digital,
>> created in
>> >> September 2011 by combining Internet assets over three continents
>> such as
>> >> social-networking site Tuenti and Web-phone unit Jajah, will expand
>> at an
>> >> annual growth rate of 20 percent, it said.
>> >>
>> >> Powerful Player
>> >>
>> >> Google in April reported first-quarter profit that topped analysts’
>> >> estimates as CEO Larry Page, who took charge a year ago, has pushed
>> Google
>> >> deeper into display advertising and mobile services.
>> >>
>> >> Android is installed on 56 percent of new smartphones, more than twice
>> >> Apple’s share, researcher Gartner Inc. said in May. In the first
>> quarter,
>> >> global handset sales declined 2 percent to 419 million, while
>> smartphone
>> >> sales rose 45 percent.
>> >>
>> >> “You need a powerful player to influence the road map,” said Malik
>> Saadi,
>> >> an analyst at Informa in London. “The operators are losing that
>> battle, even
>> >> with Android, and the only way is to create their own brand in the
>> mass
>> >> smartphone market.”
>> >>
>> >> Mozilla, which has doubled its staffing in mobile in the last year, is
>> >> starting from a low base as it aims to do the same thing with
>> smartphones as
>> >> it did to the desktop with its web browser. Mozilla’s existing mobile
>> >> browser had less than 1 percent of the market at the end of 2011,
>> according
>> >> to Net Applications.
>> >>
>> >> Failed Rivals
>> >>
>> >> By designing a device where even the dialing screen is a web page,
>> it’s a
>> >> chance for Mozilla to differentiate devices, said CEO Gary Kovacs.
>> “If you
>> >> look at Android and Apple and Windows, a phone in Brazil looks the
>> same as a
>> >> phone in Cleveland,” he said in an interview.
>> >>
>> >> At the same time, the operators are following a path littered with
>> >> failures from both carriers and manufacturers to come up with a rival
>> >> platform.
>> >>
>> >> Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) stopped making devices using its open-
>> source
>> >> WebOS software it acquired from Palm Inc. for $1.2 billion in 2011.
>> Nokia
>> >> Oyj (NOK1V) scrapped its own Meltemi platform in June, according to a
>> person
>> >> familiar with the matter.
>> >>
>> >> Domingo is aware of those pitfalls. While Mozilla’s foray into
>> Internet
>> >> browsing made the web competitive, he said, “that is very different
>> to the
>> >> situation we have in mobile.”
>> >>
>> >> “It is all about control, and once you have that control you can open
>> up
>> >> many doors,” said Nick Dillon, an analyst at Ovum. “It’s the ability
>> to push
>> >> apps on the home screen.”
>> >>
>> >> To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Browning in London at
>> >> jbrowning9(a)bloomberg.net
>> >>
>> >> To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at
>> >> kwong11(a)bloomberg.net
>> >>
>> >> Find out more about Bloomberg for Android:
>>
http://m.bloomberg.com/android
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> >>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Phil Inje Chang
>> > Product Manager, Mobile
>> > Wikimedia Foundation
>> > 415-812-0854 m
>> > 415-882-7982 x 6810
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Mobile-l mailing list
>> > Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> >
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>> >
>>
>
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>
--
Phil Inje Chang
Product Manager, Mobile
Wikimedia Foundation
415-812-0854 m
415-882-7982 x 6810