WASHINGTON — Chinese telecom giant ZTE announced plans Monday to sell
a low-cost smartphone using the open source Firefox operating system in
the United States and Britain.
ZTE said its Open Firefox OS phone will be sold through eBay in the US for $79.99 and 59.99 pounds in Britain.
The
phone, unlocked to allow use on a variety of mobile networks, uses the
open source Firefox operating platform from the nonprofit Mozilla
Foundation, which is aiming to break the dominance of Google's Android
and Apple's iOS.
"The global availability of the ZTE Open through
eBay means that more consumers worldwide are now able, for the first
time, to buy an affordable smartphone based entirely on open Web
standards," the Chinese firm said in a statement.
"The ZTE Open is
powered by Firefox OS, which frees developers, operators and consumers
from the constraints of existing closed ecosystems by using the Web as
the platform for all functionality and applications."
The statement said sales would begin "soon," without elaborating.
ZTE
vice president Dai Wenhong said the company "is devoted to providing
more options for customers globally and enabling them to live better
lives via advanced technology.
The ZTE Open offers customers a
smartphone experience at an incredible price point, making it ideal for
cost conscious consumers or those looking to upgrade to a smartphone for
the first time."
The phone offered for US and British consumers
is orange in color, while a blue version has been on sale in Spain and
Venezuela and a black version in Colombia.
In June, Taiwan's Hon
Hai Precision said it aims to hire up to 3,000 new employees to develop
devices and software for Mozilla's Firefox operating system.
Hon Hai, better known by its trade name Foxconn and a major supplier to Apple, plans to produce five devices running on Firefox.
The
Firefox operating system uses applications on HTML5, a Web standard
which operates across platforms, unlike those developed for specific
systems such a Apple's iOS or Google Android.
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.
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