Mozilla will release $25 Firefox OS phone

Firefox OS is Mozilla's ambitious project that offers users an operating system with more freedeom than its counterparts, Android and iOS, which mostly restrict users to use only special destined apps.

Intex and Spice, two Indian-based companies, want to build an unbelievably cheap smartphone that runs on the Firefox OS and sell it, in a few months' time, for only $25.

'The platform will give us an edge in upgrading buyers from feature phones to smartphones while making it affordable for the mass market,' said the head of Intex's mobile business, who puts his hopes for the success of the handset into its cheap price.

Mozilla is already known as a company committed to open Web. However, transfering its goals as an organization to a smartphone OS might not have the expected outcome. First, it will have to battle not only the established OS all-mighty global rulers, Android and iOS, but also the programmers who mostly build destined Android or iOS apps rather than Web-based versions that would function everywhere.

Mozilla, however, is not aiming to compete with high-end smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S model, but wants to make a smartphone version of the older feature phones, which only have a handful of in-built apps.

Its strategy may be paying off as Mozilla announced last week that the largest mobile network operator in Taiwan has already signed up for the Firefox project. Moreover, Alcatel and ZTE handset-makers are expected to launch their own Firefox OS smartphones this summer.