Although we shouldn’t be holding our breath for it to appear any time soon, Mozilla has announced plans to make it’s own web-based operating system along the same lines as Google’s Chrome OS. However, instead of debuting it on a netbook, Mozilla is targeting smartphones and tablets.
The name of the project is Boot to Gecko, an unusual moniker which refers to starting up the OS into Gecko, the name of the browser engine powering Mozilla’s Firefox. The company will use sections of the open source Android code to get Boot to Gecko up and running, and then rely on internal developers and the army of external Mozilla coders to create APIs to run web-based apps to control the device’s main functions.
Although Android will feature in its code, Boot to Gecko won’t run Android apps; but will instead use web apps created specifically for the project.
New entries into the smartphone/tablet operating system world are always interesting, however, the market has never been as competitive as it is now, and for any newcomer to make an impact it’ll have to be something very special indeed. Quite aside from needing to get hardware partners onboard, the general consumer has got to accept the possibility of a continuously online OS too.
Mozilla has a dedicated following, but if industry heavyweights such as Intel and Microsoft struggle to break through with their smartphone software; they’ve got a long and very difficult road ahead.
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