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Yes. Mozilla couldn’t get the mobile operators to sell a phone pre-loaded with FirefoxOS. And no one is going to buy a phone and reimage it. > I can't understa
by TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Yes. Mozilla couldn’t get the mobile operators to sell a phone pre-loaded with FirefoxOS. And no one is going to buy a phone and reimage it.
> I can't understand how Mozilla failed to execute on Firefox OS.
This is naive. They did execute, and failed. That’s different than not executing at all. You can’t break into this segment without cooperation from the mobile phone operators... even in India and Southeast Asia whom were the primary target markets (less disposable income than Americans)
I had a Firefox OS phone. There was nothing great about it. It was average (by intention in order to work on restricted devices). I never used it to make calls, I used it for development. And it only had a wifi connection because I did not buy service for it.
There was nothing really “disruptive” about it as I recall. $20 Android phones destroyed any hope after the mobile operators turned a blind eye.
p.s. I still have the phone.
- zamadatix 6y agoSo I guess the question is what made KaiOS able to succeed instead of fail if we're saying the problems FirefoxOS faced weren't execution? Was it simply different timing and now more operators are willing to partner?
- fabrice_d 6y agoThe GP is mostly wrong. What killed FxOS in the market is the lack of official support for one extremely popular messaging application starting by W. Then Mozilla's leadership didn't have the patience to wait for the right opportunity.
- jagger27 6y agoFirefox OS predates the 'F' acquisition of 'W' by about a year, right? Did that have anything to do with it, in your opinion?
- fabrice_d 6y agoNo I don't think this is related in any way.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoLack of WhatsApp support did not kill FirefoxOS.
- fabrice_d 6y agoCommercially, it totally did. Without Whatsapp we could not sell enough devices, but without enough volume Whatsapp was not interested to build an official app. Chicken, meet egg!
- toastal 6y agoI wonder what markets WhatsApp is important to. In the UK quite a few people used it while briefly lived there, but in the US, Thailand, Vietnam, et.al. I didn't see anyone using or ever talking about it.
- zem 6y agoit's huge in india. a phone that did not support it would definitely be a non-starter.
- abrowne 6y agoEuropean countries.
- FelipeCortez 6y agoIt is _the_ chat app in Brazil. Brazil is pretty big
- thaumasiotes 6y agoAdding on to the other comments, I understand it is the default messaging app in Australia / New Zealand. More roughly, my understanding of the messaging space was: - USA: Facebook Messenger - Japan, Taiwan: LINE - China: WeChat - Everywhere Else in the World: WhatsApp And the comments here seem to basically bear that out.
- zhte415 6y ago
- zamadatix 6y agoThis doesn't really answer the question any it just adds more speculation in between again. But to rewrite the question with the new speculation - what made KaiOS able to succeed in starting without WhatsApp support and eventually getting it (last year) instead of failing on both counts like FirefoxOS did? I.e. if you've got something to claim as the reason it can't also apply to KaiOS unless there was something KaiOS did right that Mozilla didn't.
- fabrice_d 6y agoKaiOS got enough users thanks to Jio Reliance in India. That convinced Whatsapp to build an app for it.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> And no one is going to buy a phone and reimage it. People do this all the time. I did it with my first android phone, a Nexus S, despite having bought the phone with no intention of doing so. The Chinese crapware it came loaded with didn't really leave any alternative.