7 ms·

The 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 Mozi

The 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 ago
Firefox 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 ago
  No I don't think this is related in any way.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Lack of WhatsApp support did not kill FirefoxOS.
- fabrice_d 6y ago
  Commercially, 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 ago
    I 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 ago
      it's huge in india. a phone that did not support it would definitely be a non-starter.
    - abrowne 6y ago
      European countries.
    - FelipeCortez 6y ago
      It is _the_ chat app in Brazil. Brazil is pretty big
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Adding 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
        I find it curious a lot of friends are getting back to Skype, for personal use, across continents, and not CorporateSkype/OC. Is this a huge selection bias thing? Don't know. Several have also recently deleted GMail.
      - Firehawke 6y ago
        I'm seeing a lot of push towards Discord in the USA as well; it's a bit awkward in that kind of usage, but when basically everyone is already using Discord on PC it's not hard to convince people to use the phone app.
      - toastal 6y ago
        Thailand is very much LINE and a close second is Messenger
    - shp0ngle 6y ago
      India. I'm pretty sure they mean India.
    - sobani 6y ago
      In the Netherlands WhatsApp is so ubiquitous that it always surprises me to hear other countries are not 100% WA. (Besides China, for obvious reasons it doesn't surprise me China has their own app.) The only people I know who don't use WhatsApp are very privacy focused and therefor use Signal.
    - toastal 6y ago
      These answers have been insightful. Not sure why asking got me downvotes.
  - mortenjorck 6y ago
    If it was literally make-or-break for the entire platform, especially in the markets it was targeting, I’m surprised Mozilla never volunteered to subsidize or build a WhatsApp port.
    - fabrice_d 6y ago
      Why do you assume didn't try anything? We actually: - have been friendly to 3rd party clients developers, like Loquim (https://loqui.im/ https://loqui.im/). Once WA turned on e2e encryption, the situation for 3rd party clients changed from "difficult but fun" to "mostly impossible". - wrote a JVM in JS to run the S40 version of WA (https://github.com/mozilla/pluotsorbet https://github.com/mozilla/pluotsorbet). - partnered with a company specialized in bringing android apps to other OSes (they had Windows Phone support for instance).
zamadatix 6y ago
This 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 ago
  KaiOS got enough users thanks to Jio Reliance in India. That convinced Whatsapp to build an app for it.

jagger27 6y ago

Firefox 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 ago
No I don't think this is related in any way.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

Lack of WhatsApp support did not kill FirefoxOS.

fabrice_d 6y ago
Commercially, 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    it's huge in india. a phone that did not support it would definitely be a non-starter.
  - abrowne 6y ago
    European countries.
  - FelipeCortez 6y ago
    It is _the_ chat app in Brazil. Brazil is pretty big
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Adding 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
      I find it curious a lot of friends are getting back to Skype, for personal use, across continents, and not CorporateSkype/OC. Is this a huge selection bias thing? Don't know. Several have also recently deleted GMail.
    - Firehawke 6y ago
      I'm seeing a lot of push towards Discord in the USA as well; it's a bit awkward in that kind of usage, but when basically everyone is already using Discord on PC it's not hard to convince people to use the phone app.
    - toastal 6y ago
      Thailand is very much LINE and a close second is Messenger
  - shp0ngle 6y ago
    India. I'm pretty sure they mean India.
  - sobani 6y ago
    In the Netherlands WhatsApp is so ubiquitous that it always surprises me to hear other countries are not 100% WA. (Besides China, for obvious reasons it doesn't surprise me China has their own app.) The only people I know who don't use WhatsApp are very privacy focused and therefor use Signal.
  - toastal 6y ago
    These answers have been insightful. Not sure why asking got me downvotes.
- mortenjorck 6y ago
  If it was literally make-or-break for the entire platform, especially in the markets it was targeting, I’m surprised Mozilla never volunteered to subsidize or build a WhatsApp port.
  - fabrice_d 6y ago
    Why do you assume didn't try anything? We actually: - have been friendly to 3rd party clients developers, like Loquim (https://loqui.im/ https://loqui.im/). Once WA turned on e2e encryption, the situation for 3rd party clients changed from "difficult but fun" to "mostly impossible". - wrote a JVM in JS to run the S40 version of WA (https://github.com/mozilla/pluotsorbet https://github.com/mozilla/pluotsorbet). - partnered with a company specialized in bringing android apps to other OSes (they had Windows Phone support for instance).

zamadatix 6y ago

This 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 ago
KaiOS got enough users thanks to Jio Reliance in India. That convinced Whatsapp to build an app for it.