Firefox OS Phones Going Higher-End, Entering New Markets

There have been some interesting developments surrounding Mozilla's Firefox OS platform and smartphones built on it. Alcatel had already delivered its popular OneTouch Fire phone based on the mobile operating system in countries ranging from Germany to Hungary and Poland. Now, the OneTouch Fire is going on sale at low prices in Italy via Telecom Italia. Meanwhile, Geeksphone has been discussing a high-end Firefox OS phone called Revolution that will purportedly run both Mozilla's platform and Android (though users will need to choose one platform).

You can check out the Geeksphone Revolution homepage here.  It's light on details, but Geeksphone was among the first makers of Firefox OS phones and has made Android phones as well. CNET has reported on the company's plans to deliver phones with high-end architecture giving users the choice to run Android or Firefox OS. 

The Arrival of the OneTouch Fire in Italy illustrates that while Mozilla has stressed that Firefox OS phones will be steered toward developing markets, carriers will take these phones to larger more established markets. The OneTouch Fire is already on sale in Germany and several other markets, and will go on sale in time for Christmas in Italy, according to ZDNet, which is citing initial pricing at €79.90. Other Firefox OS-based phones have been on sale in Spain and other European countries.

Mozilla is, so far, not wavering from its messaging focus on lower-end Firefox OS phones for emerging markets, but phone makers are already concentrating on higher-end versions and carriers will deliver these phones in larger and larger markets.