When Mozilla showed off Firefox OS and the smartphones the operating system would run on, it was clear that Mozilla was targeting the low-end smartphone market and emerging markets.
Don't mistake that execution for how Mozilla views Firefox OS in the future and the hardware that will run the open-source operating system. Mozilla has big plans for Firefox OS but believes that in order to get to the finish line, it must carry out a plan of targeting the low-end and emerging markets before it takes on any of the major players like iOS and Android. That will come with time, according to Mozilla.
Andreas Gal, vice president of mobile engineering at Mozilla, spoke to ZDNET about the current and future goals of its mobile operating system. He explained that while people might view Mozilla's strategy as simply going after the low-end and emerging market, he sees the platform doing a whole lot more and on a variety of different hardware, not just low-end.
"Trying to make an iPhone killer doesn't address the majority of the market," Gal said. "Of course we're interested in covering the entire space, there's no reason the Web can't be used to build high-end phones, and we will make those phones over time."
Gal also gave some insight on how Firefox OS came to be. He revealed that the project was intended for tablets, due to the similarities it has with desktop computers, mainly because the screen size of PC monitors are closer in size to a tablet than a smartphone. When approaching device makers it was clear the first devices to run Firefox OS would be smartphones.
"It became clear very quickly that the volume right now is behind smartphones. Tablets are an interesting next step [...] I can definitely see us going to tablets in future, right now a lot of opportunities exist in phones, at least for this year," Gal said.
So while many might view Firefox OS as only a mobile operating system for low-end smartphones and emerging markets, just as the tortoise had a plan to win the race by slow and steady, so does Mozilla when it comes to Firefox OS.
