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
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
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
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org