América Móvil Carries Mozilla's Firefox OS To Mexico

The company's Telcel subsidiary will sell Alcatel One Touch phones with Mozilla's browser-based operating system.

Mozilla has a new partner, América Móvil, a carrier that will spread its Firefox OS mobile operating system to Mexico. The nonprofit organization is developing the smartphone OS as an attempt to counter some of the power of Google and Apple in the mobile market. Mobile operators and handsets are crucial to the effort, and América Móvil has begun selling Alcatel's One Touch Fire line of Firefox OS phones through its Telcel brand, Mozilla said Tuesday.

At the Mobile World Congress conference in February, Alcatel announced a trio of Firefox OS phones: the One Touch Fire S, Fire E, and Fire C. The phones are lower-end models -- though a step up from the single One Touch Fire that began the Firefox OS push in 2013. Ultimately Firefox will have to compete more directly against iOS and Android, but for now, Mozilla is trying to find a foothold in cost-sensitive markets where people are getting their first taste of smartphones...