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Mozilla Corp. is working on two new projects that could provide opportunities for smart phone growth in emerging markets.
With the acquisition of Motorola, the turmoil at RIM, and Nokia floundering, there’s not a better time to create a new phone platform. As much as I hate to use the word ‘platform’, Mozilla is credibly doing that through two new projects; WebAPI and Boot to Gecko (B2G). WebAPI creates an API to low level functions on a phone (dialer, SMS, contacts) while B2G provides the kernel and associated processes to make them work. The result is a phone that can run applications built with standard web software instead of dedicated application frameworks (i.e. Android and iOS). In short, if you can build a web service, you can build a mobile app.
Trying to launch a new phone platform in North America or Europe would be doomed to fail, but I think it has profound implications for emerging markets. These markets are beginning to move from basic phones and providing these customers with a way to leapfrog the current platform specific apps to web apps. Ultimately, it’s up to the Carrier if they want to deploy and support another platform, but there are a lot of great web developers all over the world and the tools to build great solutions are numerous. Imagine: a Carrier could provide a localized group messaging system and social networking while getting the rewards of running ads on everything.
More later….
