Deutsche Telekom claims to be Europe’s first carrier to launch a smartphone powered by the mobile variant of Mozilla’s Firefox operating system (OS), with the launch today of Alcatel’s One Touch Fire.
The German incumbent began taking pre-orders for the device on Friday, and will today start retailing it through 850 T-Mobile Poland stores. The operator plans to expand sales to a German sub-brand, and its operations in Hungary and Greece, in the autumn.
Deutsche Telekom is one of several partners developing the Firefox OS, in a bid to develop a smartphone platform that can compete with established software from Google, Apple, Microsoft and BlackBerry.
"With Firefox OS we are expanding our existing portfolio with a new operating system that is open, developer-friendly and reasonably priced,” says Claudia Nemat, board member for Europe and Technology at Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Telekom’s claim to have Europe’s only Firefox OS smartphone will be short lived, with Telefonica also planning to launch a unit powered by the software – ZTE’s Open – in the coming months.