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Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OSMozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OSPosted Feb 25, 2013 20:21 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS by pabs Parent article: Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS
Why do carriers need to be involved at all? Surely the hardware manufacturers and Mozilla developers are all that is needed to make Firefox OS? Sure. If your goal is to create new generation of Neo FreeRunner then that's all that you need. Now, if you want to actually sell your devices carriers are vital. Carriers and carriers-affiliated sales control most sales of mobile phones - without them your platform is stillborn. Nokia witnessed it first-hand: it had the best relationship with carriers in the world (except for US) and sold more smartphones then number two and number three combined (number two and number three were Apple and RIM back then). Then Elop pissed them off and now Nokia is barely number ten. Carriers can not push broken mobile platform (buyers will still spurn it given the alternative) but they absolutely can kill any platform they don't like. This means that now Firefox OS has a fighting chance. Not a large chance (I'm still not sure how they want to attract buyers), but at least a chance.
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Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 3:52 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
Er, all you guys need to get out of the US now and then. Nokia had declined to near-zero in the US long before Elop took over, but it was still the largest seller in the rest of the world, where we buy phones from hardware vendors and SIMs from carriers. That Nokia subsequently declined has absolutely zero to do with their relationship with carriers: it's solely because their OS didn't cut it any more.
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 10:24 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Nokia had declined to near-zero in the US long before Elop took over, but it was still the largest seller in the rest of the world, where it had the best carrier relations in the world. Elop killed it — and now Nokia is dead. If you have carriers on your side — you are the kind (Nokia in the most of the world), if you pissed them off (Nokia in US) — you are dead. Yes, that's my point. What's your point? That Nokia subsequently declined has absolutely zero to do with their relationship with carriers: it's solely because their OS didn't cut it any more. Let's see: Nokia has crappy OS and phones (latest models of Symbian flagmans were one fiasco after another) and great relationship with carriers == Nokia is king of the smartphones, Nokia has crappy OS (yes, Windows Phone is crappy, that's true) and it pissed of carriers == Nokia is dead. And you still want to say that carriers relationship does not matter ? Sorry, does not compute.
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 10:47 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] I believe you should read your own links before posting them. From your article (which I've seen before):In many countries the phones are sold with subsidies, tied to two-year contracts. (Some readers will be surprised to find this is not the case for the majority of the world, where people pay full retail price for their handsets - ie 600 dollars for the iPhone - upfront, but then are not locked to two-year contracts and get far cheaper phone services obviously).It is that "majority of the world" where Nokia dominated till recently and still sells quite respectably. It is because of the quality of their hardware. You got battery life of several days, sunlight-readable screens, and you could drop it from the first floor and it would still work. (First floor = floor above ground floor)
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 10:58 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
PS -- yes, the guy does claim, despite the quote above, that Nokia's relation with carriers was key. He says, as far as I can tell, that this is because carrier "support" is needed even when (as in the majority of cases) you buy the handset separately. This is simply not true. First, the market is flooded with cheap no-name Chinese handsets, all of which work fine; people don't think of checking with the carrier first. Second, even today, nobody will even consider questioning whether Nokia will be supported, and no carrier will decline to support Nokia.
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 11:13 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] First, the market is flooded with cheap no-name Chinese handsets, all of which work fine But which still occupy less then 30% of the market. Note that Nokia in 2010 (before it broke relationship with carriers) had 40% while today it has less then 20%. Second, even today, nobody will even consider questioning whether Nokia will be supported, and no carrier will decline to support Nokia. It's one thing to decline to support Nokia bought by a geek from some website (even US carriers are not that bold!), it's totally different thing to decline to support Nokia sales pitch. Carriers did that in the last two years and Nokia went from about "40%" to "about 25%" and now to "less then 20%". And in smartphones (where they went from active support to boycott) it went from 34% to 5%. Yes, if you are the market leader even carriers can't kill you quickly. But if you are not… it's different story.
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 11:00 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] It is that "majority of the world" where Nokia dominated till recently and still sells quite respectably. Only because Samsung abandoned this segment entirely. It looks like Samsung have finally decided to seal Nokia's coffin, though. We'll see how it'll work.
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 11:06 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
Er, Samsung sells phones at all price points, and has for a while now. Here in India they've sold cheap phones for years, but only recently have they improved in perception of quality (having captured the high-end market). The cheaper Samsungs didn't run Android until recently, but now they have quite inexpensive Android phones too. But yes, there is plenty of room at the bottom of the market, where the cheap Chinese guys have invaded.
Nokia's Asha mystifies me -- their OS is *worse* than Symbian S60 in many ways (notably, they don't support multitasking, so you can't listen to music and surf the web at the same time -- a thing my 3-year-old Nokia E63 does comfortably.)
Mozilla announces 18 carriers supporting Firefox OS Posted Feb 26, 2013 11:18 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Here in India Ah, now I see why your worldview is so skewed. In effect you are just as biased as US citizens, just in the opposite direction: in India there are so many carriers that few can seriously affect the market. Both US (where carriers more-or-less control everything) and India (where they have very small power) are an exceptions. Most of the world lies between these two opposite points. But yes, there is plenty of room at the bottom of the market, where the cheap Chinese guys have invaded. Apparently not enough to keep Nokia from losses now when it no longer has carrier's support.
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