Wednesday, December 9, 2015

End of Firefox OS for smartphones or painful lesson for those who dream of your own system – Gazeta.pl

See also: Edmund Janniger resigned

The Mozilla Foundation has released a statement yesterday in which tells to abandon further development work on Firefox OS. On the market do not end smartphones with this system.

Mozilla’s decision ends not long lasting dream of winning the developing markets. In February 2013 years , we learned that, in addition to Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Venezuela, we are fortunate to be one of the first countries where the debut of Firefox OS smartphones. A system created by Mozilla have the name recognition and the approval of guarantees hardware manufacturers such as Alcatel, LG and ZTE .

From the beginning it was clear that Mozilla aims at “low shelf”. Firefox OS smartphones were supposed to be cheap, but giving more opportunities than feature-phone’y such as the Nokia Asha. And more efficient than a low-end, slow smartphones with Android. Firefox OS many solutions based because at H TML5 , which was designed to provide optimal performance on devices with minimal parameters.

That is why Alcatel One Touch Fire, the first model launched for mass sales, had only 256MB RAM, 512MB of data and single-core processor Qualcomm MSM7227. Chip was also the heart of the Lumii 610, Xperia J, ZTE Blade III . Smartphones, which could not be classified as demons, speed and efficiency.

Firefox OS had so little to meet the expectations of waiting. Despite the presence in thirty countries of the system user community is not great – Mozilla announces an E Marketplace app store, visits three million people per month. Google Play Store … one billion people per month. Annette Zimmermann with the Gartner research agency announced in turn that among the 1.2 billion smartphones sold worldwide in 2014, only two million accounted device running Mozilla.

​​FX0 Fig. by TheVerge

The reasons for the failure Firefox OS

As usual it is difficult to determine the cause of failure Firefox OS. There were a few. First Firefox OS hit the market probably too early yet too late. It is too early, because he was released in imperfect versions, too late, because the market giants long ago managed to consolidate on their positions.

Mozilla Smartphones allow you to make calls, browse the Internet, communicate. They could also freeze and irritate users disadvantages of adolescence. The situation recalls the problems being experienced by users of Windows Phone version 7.5 or 7.8. It turned out that to create a well-functioning system from scratch is not an easy task and requirements of users, even these modest, it is difficult to meet.

Another reason for the failure of Firefox OS is a huge competition from Android and Microsoft. Giant from Redmond, despite significant investment in marketing, barely managed to generate 4-5% market share (although Poland has been successful, to be discussed below). Mozilla competed very late, had to reckon with the fact that it will be hard to beat. I actually sales in Poland were simply bad. In Poland, the system heavily promoted T-Mobile. Mozilla smartphones seemed to be the ideal solution offerings “for PLN 1″. Unfortunately, the Poles were not convinced to the fact that Supert is superfajne.

Weak sales results disappointing turn hardware manufacturers to develop devices with Firefox OS were not so keen.

The last reason of failure Firefox OS? The development of technology. The market is flooded with “średniakami” smartphones with quad-core example. Mediatek. They do not cost much, have a “real” and well-known system or Android. What is the meaning of today choose Firefox OS, a system that is still in its infancy? Only save a small amount of money?

Over the almost three years the market has changed, Firefox OS seems completely not suit him. I just did not like the users smarfonów. Because users TVs will still be able to use it – Panasonic chose him to run their equipment.

Nobody wins with Android and iOS-I?

Mozilla not first consists weapon in the battle for the hearts and wallets of consumers. The market is essentially only devices with Android and iOS. The numbers are absolute : 82.8% global market falls on Android, iOS 13.9%, 2.6% on Windows Phone. BlackBerry OS has a 0.4% market share, other systems … 0.3%. As with the graph in hand to convince ZTE and Alcatel that Firefox OS is a good deal?



The popularity of mobile operating systems in Poland

The latest data on the subject published Antyweb together with the SW Research. The leader is an Android (75% share in the Polish market), followed by Windows Phone strengthened (14.2% a year ago 9%). IOS position has not changed – is 3.9%. Smartphones with BlackBerry OS uses 2.2% of users, other 1.3%.

Mozilla withdrew from the battle for the smartphone market in total rather suddenly. Until recently reported new agreements with equipment manufacturers and operators. Apparently, this fight is brought too little profit. The Foundation has announced that it wants to focus on the development of the browser. Firefox OS has a chance to continue to exist on the market, but only as a platform for intelligent TVs.

What does this mean for consumers? In the mobile operators rather we never buy smartphones running other than Android, iOS, Windows Phone. If you want other solutions we need to look for them yourself and hope that the creators of the system have enough energy to its further development. The creators of Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch still are successful. Systems even less popular, yet popular environmental rozwijane.Mało are rather designed for enthusiasts and connoisseurs, less experienced users prefer to think something familiar.

Perhaps the Firefox OS would have a greater chance of success if they took … today. The current generation of equipment would guarantee more comfort, more possibilities. And so the death of Firefox OS, no one had noticed. Who of you had the opportunity to play such a smartphone? What were your impressions? Please comment.

LikeTweet

No comments:

Post a Comment