Why Mozilla Is Entering the Smartphone War

Mozilla’s mission since its outset in 1998, first as a software project and later as a foundation and company, has been to provide open technology that challenges a dominant corporate product. Microsoft and its Internet Explorer browser was Mozilla’s original target. Today, Mozilla sees the rise of Apple and Google in mobile software as a “threat to the open Web,” said Jay Sullivan, vice president for products at the Mozilla Corporation. In recent months, Mozilla has been developing its own open-source smartphone operating system, Boot 2 Gecko. Its published product road map says Boot 2 Gecko will be demonstrated in products before the end of March and will ship in phones by the second quarter of this year. Mozilla is expected to announce handset and carrier partners at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, which starts next week.