HUA HIN, Thailand - Mozilla, the maker of the popular Firefox web browser, have entered the mobile operating systems arena with a platform unveiled this week at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Spain. The initial target market for the new Firefox OS is the developing world, where the likes of Apple have little ground due to their lofty pricing structures.
It will run on lower cost smart-phones manufactured by Asian companies including ZTE, Alcatel, Huawei, Sony and LG. The one big name missing from the list of Firefox phones is Samsung who, according to CNET, made the announcement to stick with Android at the MWC this week. Mozilla stated that 18 network operators were also on board, which is a pretty significant achievement for
new OS with a nonexistent track record.
Apps on the new OS will be open source HTML5 which means they'll run on the web as well as the phone however the initial problem is that there won't be many of them. It will also have the ability to gather search results from both the web and apps simultaneously, as well as a feature allowing users to create an app from a search term for expedited searches.
The crowded smart-phone OS market is dominated by Apple and Android which jointly have 85% market share. Microsoft and Blackberry have been trying to make a dent but together hold a mere 8% so the question remains as to whether there is room for a fifth contender.
Mozilla chief executive Gary Kovacs commented: "Right now the mobile world is busy and it's because there is so much economic value to be gained by owning the platform. We're not trying to get in the middle of an operating-system fight; what we are trying to do is be the catalyst to drive more development around the open web."
The Mozilla ethos, unlike that of Apple and Google who are purely profit driven, is to focus more on cross compatibility and openness using web-apps rather than the closed-ecosystems offered by the today's two dominant players.
Browsers
Software giant Microsoft upgraded its still dominant web browser this week to around 700 million users running Windows 7. Internet Explorer 10 offers the usual batch of promises such as faster page loading, better security, privacy, greater HTML5 support, and improved Javascript integration. Another interesting function is the Tracking Protection in which websites are barred by default from collecting user information and storing third-party tracking cookies.
Customers with auto-update enabled in Windows 7 will get a seamless update in the coming weeks. The company usually restricts new browser to those running its latest operating system, in this case Windows 8. The decision to back-step IE10 to Windows 7 seems to be an implicit acknowledgement that Windows 8 is not seeing the rapid and widespread take-up that Microsoft hoped for.
A company blog post stated that IE10 has a 60% increase in support for web standards, improving issues that previous versions of the browser have long suffered. Microsoft's general manager for Windows Internet Explorer, Ryan Gavin, boasted "the performance improvement from IE9 to IE10 is substantial; in fact, IE10 is about 20% faster for real world sites than its predecessor."
According to research firm Net Applications, IE's slice of the usage pie actually increased in December and January reversing a long trend that has seen it lose market share to Firefox and Chrome. It reported that Internet Explorer sat at 55.14% at the end of January, with Firefox at 19.94%, Chrome at 17.48%, and Safari at 5.24%.
Hardware
Microchip giant Intel is pushing further into the mobile market with new Atom processors for Android smart-phones and tablets. Speaking at this week's Mobile World Congress, Intel vice president Hermann Eul touted the new Clover Trail+ platform as a solid rival to today's popular ARM powered devices; "our second-generation product delivers double the compute performance and up to three times the graphics capabilities, all while maintaining competitive low power".
He also confirmed that the new 22 nanometer Atom platform will support advanced imaging capabilities for two on-board cameras, with a primary camera sensor up to 16 megapixels, and display support of 1900x1200, enabling the platform to facilitate larger-screen Android tablet designs. All this comes with support for Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), Intel Wireless Display Technology, and HSPA+ at 42Mbps.
Meanwhile rival company Nvidia revealed its new Tegra 4 processor, which is based on ARM's powerful Cortex-A15 quad-core architecture. Official benchmarking websites put the chip at the top of the heap for speed and computing horsepower.
Unfortunately, there aren't yet any devices out there powered by Nvidia's Tegra 4, so the chip couldn't be tested under real world conditions in a tablet or smart-phone. China's ZTE is set to ship the first Tegra 4 smart-phone in the next few months.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
