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Desperate to become less dependent on Google/Apple, over a dozen carriers are now backing...
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Monday, February 25, 5:40 PM ETDesperate to become less dependent on Google/Apple, over a dozen carriers are now backing Mozilla's Firefox OS - the list includes Sprint (S), Telefonica (TEF), T-Mobile (DTEGY.PK), and America Movil (AMX). Sony (SNE), Huawei, ZTE, LG, and Alcatel (ALU) plan to make hardware for the platform, but Samsung, which is committed to Tizen as an Android alternative, isn't interested. An AMX exec promises $100 Firefox phones will arrive; Android phones are already in that price range in emerging markets. (previous)
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I would expect this effort to do well in some markets, though the barrier for some end users remains the high monthly cost of a smartphone. Unless the carriers change the pricing structures, low entry costs for devices will only entice a few people into smartphones.
The operators have, for the most part, proven inept at harnessing the device environment they are largely responsible for creating as it has shifted from tight control to the more open IP based environment. The lock-in of customers has moved away from the broken down 'walled garden' applications environment to the rapid development and more open IP environment. As a consequence, the OS is not the most important individual piece. Or rather, the paradigm has shifted from control of any individual aspect of the device and service environment to building in enough hooks to hold control over enough of the user experience that the operator has leverage in mobile payments, advertising, content delivery including the expanding streaming media/TV areas.
What has been the lock-in and remains so but almost as a counter-productive curse is to the control over the customer to network user identity and location based information. Operators have not yet extended much beyond core service revenues to mobile payments, LB advertising. Those areas should almost be 'gotchas'... coming with the ownership of the network to exert to the services that run on top of it.