Popular open source web browser giant has joined the bandwagon of Smart Phone Operating Systems with its Firefox OS to compete with iOS, Android, Windows and Symbian. Mozilla today announced that mobile phones running Firefox OS will be available by early 2013. A number of European Telecom operators such as Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor has backed this Friefox Mobile OS project.

Firefox OS will be Open Source:

Being true to its Open Source philosophy, Mozilla said:

…..(Firefox) will power the launch of smartphones built entirely to open Web standards, where all of the device’s capabilities can be developed as HTML5 applications.

HTML 5 at its fullest:

Firefox OS intends to use the maximum out of HTML 5 with ‘new phone architecture where every phone feature (calling, messaging, games, etc.) is an HTML5 application.’ The work started last year under the project “Boot to Gecko” that allows ‘HTML5 applications to access the underlying capabilities of a phone, previously only available to native applications.’

Firefox, Do you have in It you?

Last few years have shown a number of smart phone OS failures such as Bada, Meego, Palm etc that simply could not make a decent cut in to the mobile OS which is heavily dominated by iOS and Android. It would be interesting to see if Firefox OS could make a cut into the pie. For this we have to wait till 2013 when it will be released in Brazil which is  an emerging mobile market with lots of prospect to grow as it is less penetrated by Android and iOS.

What do you think of Firefox OS? Is it good move by Firefox to jump into a risky smart phone OS which has seen fall of giants? And once available will you opt for Firefox OS over your existing iOS, Android or Windows?