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back to article Foxconn recruiting 3,000-strong army to work on Firefox OS

Foxconn is a firm believer in the Mozilla Foundation's open source Firefox OS – so much so that the Taiwanese electronics giant is reportedly planning to beef up its software staff by as many as 3,000 workers to help support the platform. Mozilla and Foxconn announced a "wide-ranging partnership" earlier this month, with …

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  1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Nobody trusts Google

    There will be rather a lot of choice in phone operating systems in due course: WP, Android, IOS, Firefox, Tizen, plus a few extra wannabes like Sailfish and Ubuntu.

    But the fight is on in the open source or "free" OS space. WP isn't going to be free anytime soon, and IOS isn't going to be available to others. The interest of hardware makers in new (and inevitably less polished) systems suggests that nobody trusts Google (or perhaps, they trust Google even less than they ever did). Personally I'll be surprised if these new OS's can really compete, but they could change the dynamic, so that Google pay the makers to install Android. Historically mobile advertising pulled in about $14 per phone/year for Google (if we believe Oracle), so on a two year contract the potentially shareable revenue is perhaps only $10, but if that annual value increases as mobile internet gains traction then the numbers look rather better.

    I can't see the cost or performance of Android being Apple's downfall (that's in their own hands), but it would mean curtains for WP, as there would be a $30-$50 gap between Android and WP purely on licence fees, made worse by the fact that WP8 product development is recovered on lower volumes.

    "E" who shall not be named will be pleased!

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nobody trusts Google

      Microsoft has no choice but to buy Nokia if it wants WP to survive.

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      1. JDX Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Nobody trusts Google

        Apart from how WP's market share has been growing steadily you mean? What IS the pecking order now... Android, iOS, WP, BB or is there one inbetween two of those I forgot?

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        1. Jess
          Reply Icon

          Apart from how WP's market share has been growing steadily you mean?

          Yes, only a few days ago, I saw someone using one.

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        2. Levente Szileszky
          Reply Icon
          Stop

          Re: Nobody trusts Google

          Yeah, that's the BS the Ballmerian clown troupe love to spread - except it was BEFORE BB started selling its new BB10-based devices, of which they are shipping now 1-2M/month...

          ...WP is just another Ballmerian fuckup, an utter DISASTER, let's face it - despite throwing BEEELLLIONS at it WP still barely registered on anyone's radar. Not unusual though - it's rather business as usual under Ballmer.

          Weep after reading the greatest article about MSTF & Ballmer from last August's Vanity Fair:

          "How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer And Corporate America's Most Spectacular Decline"

          http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer#1

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      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nobody trusts Google

        "Microsoft has no choice but to buy Nokia if it wants WP to survive."

        That would buy them some time, by stopping Nokia from producing Android (or other OS) phones. But it doesn't alter the market dynamics that nobody wants WP. So for WP to survive longer term, Microsoft have to actually make it desirable for customers, and commercially attractive for handset makers.

        It needs to be offered on (perhaps) the Galaxy S5, or whatever is flavour of the month next year. It needs to have the support of "influentials" (which probably includes Reg readers). And it needs to lose the $25 or more licence fee. But Microsoft aren't hip, and they aren't popular, nor do they currently have a business model that can create revenues from usage or additional services. And there's no compelling capabilities of WP - even on the hardware side the Nokia 41Mp camera isn't compelling in a world where (as with audio) adequate is more than good enough for most buyers.

        WP is doomed until Microsoft forget about the technology (and the tiles) and have a root and branch review of the customer proposition and the commercials: Why should anybody choose WP, and how can Microsoft make a profit?

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        1. Shagbag
          Reply Icon
          Mushroom

          Re: it doesn't alter the market dynamics that nobody wants WP

          Agreed.

          MSFT missed the boat on mobile. It thought it could wait, come in, and then use its monopoly power to push though its product line. It's found out it can't.

          MSFT missed the explosion of the internet and Google ate its lunch. Bing is irrelevant.

          MSFT missed smartphones and first Apple ate its lunch, then Google knocked Apple off the table as has been eating ever since. WP is irrelevant.

          MSFT missed tablets, Apple ate its lunch, and Apple's still eating. It's even eating MSFT's core: desktop users. Macs and Macbooks are more popular than ever.

          MSFT is contracting. It is no longer the mighty monopolist that it once was. Its star has burned. It burned brightly, mind you, but it's now burning out. Consumers are switching to mobile and businesses are now fragmenting into two camps: those that are 'a MSFT shop' and those that only have Windows on the desktop. Even the latter is expected to evolve as the need for desktop Windows declines in large corporates. With MS Office 365 there's little need for a Windows desktop at the office.

          RIP MSFT, may you burn in hell.

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          1. Mark .
            Reply Icon

            Re: it doesn't alter the market dynamics that nobody wants WP

            Your history revisionism to place Apple on the top of everything is off:

            "MSFT missed smartphones and first Apple ate its lunch, then Google knocked Apple off the table as has been eating ever since. WP is irrelevant."

            Nope, Apple has never been number one (and actually even Windows Mobile outsold the original iphone). Symbian dominated until 2011, when overtaken by Android, not iphone.

            "MSFT missed tablets, Apple ate its lunch, and Apple's still eating. It's even eating MSFT's core: desktop users. Macs and Macbooks are more popular than ever."

            Yes I even saw one with one the other day. But wake me up when Macs outsell Windows. And when tablets outsell laptops, it'll be on Android (Apple's share collapsed in Q1 this year).

            I don't understand these arguments. If popularity really matters, then you shouldn't ever be using Mac or iphone. If it doesn't matter, then why try to pretend they're more popular?

            I don't think a Windows monopoly a good thing, but I'm confused when people suggest that everyone instead using Apple (no choice in hardware *and* software, and a much more closed platform on devices with no keyboard) would be a good thing. Your argument isn't "It's good to have more choice", it's "Haha MS are going to die".

            Even if what you claimed was true, I don't see why you're cheering about it. You can still at least install Linux on your PC (made by your choice of company) if you prefer, but good luck having a choice for your Mac and ios world.

            1 1
          2. JDX Gold badge
            Reply Icon

            @ShagBag

            What's wrong with the Eadon login?

            Also, please stop anthropomorphising a gigantic corporation.

            1 3
        2. Mark .
          Reply Icon

          Re: Nobody trusts Google

          I'm an Android lover, but that doesn't mean it's time to distort facts. Millions of people are buying WP. Millions more buy Android than iphone, but that doesn't mean "nobody wants iphones".

          "even on the hardware side the Nokia 41Mp camera isn't compelling in a world where (as with audio) adequate is more than good enough for most buyers."

          But then, you've just argued away the benefit of any particular phone, since just about all phones and platforms are "good enough".

          I'm not sure any company is "hip", certainly not in technology. Unless you're actually a kid in the playground basing your argument on "But X is cool, and Y isn't cool!"

          I agree it would seem sensible to eliminate the fee, and long term make money through downloads.

          0 1
  3. g e
    Holmes

    More likely

    Foxconn are more than happy to get another potentially large customer to plug the gap created by fapple scarpering off to Pegatron

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This uses the android kernel btw, so it will still have NSA backdoors but there will be less privacy problems from native and 3rd party apps on the phone which is nice :)

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    1. Paul 135
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Is there any evidence that there are NSA backdoors in the open source Android kernel?

      I'd say that any backdoor would be embedded somewhere within Google Play services when Google sends data back to big brother. This is why I believe more people need to speak out against Google Play and apps DRM-attached to Google Play stop Google's attempts to insidiously increase the proprietary nature of Android.

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      1. dogged
        Reply Icon

        Given that Google don't even open the source until the "latest" version is at least two point releases old - so much for Open Source requiring a contribution system - how "open" Android actually is, is debatable.

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    1. dogged
      Reply Icon

      Re: 2000 - 3000 developers ?

      Drivers for hardware.

      The kernel and UI are the easy bit. Actually making all the bits work, that's hard.

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      1. JDX Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: 2000 - 3000 developers ?

        Yeah but I doubt even WinXP had that many devs

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        1. Levente Szileszky
          Reply Icon

          Re: 2000 - 3000 developers ?

          It had a lot more but XP actually waited for the vendors to provide their drivers first...

          1 1
  6. ecofeco Silver badge

    Correct me if I'm wrong

    But HTML 5 has not been finalized yet, is it?

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