Mozilla has released its first Firefox OS smartphone in a pair of African countries as an exclusive through the network provider Orange.
After developing the third most used web browser in the world – Firefox, which it launched in 2002, Mozilla has finally stepped into the smartphone arena to service previously unreached parts of the third world and has officially announced the arrival of the Orange Klif which went on sale in Senegal and Madagascar last week.
In a statement on the Mozilla Blog company CTO Andreas Gal says “We are pleased to partner with Orange to bring the mobile Web to users in a substantial number of new growth markets across Africa and the Middle East” and adds “I’m also thrilled to see how the imminent arrival of Firefox OS has created excitement in the local Mozilla communities.”
The Orange Klif offers a functional handset with a selection of fairly humble specs including the Firefox OS v2.0, 3.5‘’ HVGA display with 320×480 pixel resolution, 1.0GHz dual core processor and 3G+ connectivity. With these lower end additions the device should easily satisfy the expectations of its intended market who will primarily be those in regions still developing their mobile data coverage.
The market reach of the Klif is expected to extend over more of Africa and the Middle East as the year progresses with more products expected from the Firefox OS line in the future with Alcatel continuing to build the hardware and Orange providing the network coverage.
Source: Mozilla Blog