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FOXCONN DEVELOPING 5 FIREFOX OS DEVICES, COULD INCLUDE TABLET

Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, has become the latest company to back Mozilla's Firefox OS and is developing
more than five devices running
the mobile operating system for its customers.
The Taiwanese manufacturing giant is working on the devices as part of a new partnership
with Mozilla to build up the Firefox OS ecosystem, the
companies said on Monday.
Foxconn, best known as the maker of Apple's iPhone, also
assembles PCs, TVs and handsets for many other top
vendors including Nokia, Sony and Hewlett-Packard, according to analysts.
Through the partnership with
Mozilla, the company wants to provide reference models for
new products built using the fledgling Firefox OS. Covered
devices could include
smartphones, tablets, laptops,and TVs, said Young Liu, general
manager for Foxconn's innovation digital system
business group.
"We are not coming out with our own brand," he stressed.
Instead, the company wants to help technology vendors
transition to the post-PC era, at a time when the industry is
straying away from Windows and Intel-based chips. Now
many PC vendors are focusing on mobile devices, and releasing tablets and smartphones to drive sales.
"It can't just be like in the past,where we used hardware to
compete. You have to compete on the entire user experience,"
he said. "We hope with Firefox we can create an ecosystem in order to help our past PC customers improve their
competitive edge."
The Firefox OS is based on the HTML5 web standard and is
meant to compete against Google's Android OS and
Apple's iOS, both of which are now dominating the mobile devices market.
The first phones built with the Firefox OS are slated to launch
in emerging markets mid-year.
So far, 18 carriers and five handset makers, including Sony,
Huawei Technologies and LG Electronics, plan to release
products using the operating system.
Mozilla expects the partnership with Foxconn will help pave the way for more Firefox OS devices from other branded vendors,
said Li Gong, Mozilla's senior vice president for mobile devices.
"They [Foxconn] are going to bring not just smartphone, but
a number of other devices, and that's another big addition to the Firefox ecosystem," he said.
To illustrate his point, Gong showed off a 10-inch tablet
running the Firefox OS. The device itself is a reference model, supplied from a
manufacturer he declined to name. When the tablet reaches the market will depend on
vendors.