Mozilla announced yesterday that it's already working with Alcatel, LG and ZTE on Firefox OS hardware and that it plans to team up with Huawei later in 2013. Now it looks like Firefox OS can add yet another manufacturer to its list of supporters, as Sony Mobile and Telefónica today revealed a multi-year agreement that'll see Telefónica offer Sony's 2013 Android product lineup (like the Xperia Z and Xperia Tablet Z) and also kicks off a collaboration effort to investigate the development of a Firefox OS device.
The goal of the partnership is to expose Sony's "premium product portfolio" to more people. While the announcement is fairly light on details, Sony Mobile Communications product executive Bob Ishida says that Sony engineers are currently working with Firefox OS and HTML5 and that his firm is working with carriers like Telefónica on a project with the goal of launching a product in 2014.
While Ishida's quote doesn't read like a guarantee that a Sony-made Firefox OS handset will see the soft, fluorescent light of a store's shelves next year, it certainly seems like Sony's interest has been piqued by Mozilla's new mobile operating system. I'm sure that Mozilla is pleased to have another manufacturer working on Firefox OS, especially given how new the platform still is and how big the name "Sony" is. Plus, considering that new Sony products like the Xperia Z and Xperia Tablet Z have received praise for their design, I bet that there are lots of folks that'd like to see what kind of Firefox OS hardware that Sony would churn out. You can kill the time until we hear more on this matter by perusing the official announcement at the Telefónica link below.
Via MobileBurn, Telefónica
