Spilling on Firefox OS-based smartphone rollout

Joined by Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla and top management representatives from Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, Qualcomm and Telecom Italia, Jon Fredrik Baksaas and Rolv-Erik Spilling announced Telenor’s commitment to bringing the open mobile ecosystem to its global business units. First to launch is Serbia, Montenegro and Hungary.

“We see a great potential in an open Web-based operating system. With HTML5 at the core of every feature on this phone, you remove barriers to development that are common with existing mobile ecosystems. This opens the door to the wide community of developers, who now have an opportunity to contribute to a new kind of smartphone,” said Baksaas addressing a packed auditorium counting more than 300 journalists and representatives from leading tech sites such as the Verge.Com and Engadget.

Connecting the next two billion to the web

By embracing Firefox’s open Web platform, Telenor aims to provide an even larger part of its customers with the best mobile internet experience possible. Offering affordable devices with applications that are tailored to local needs, Firefox OS will contribute to connecting the next two billion customers to the web.

This cooperation with Mozilla is yet another initiative originating from Telenor Digital Services. We talked to Rolv-Erik Spilling – Head of Digital Services – to get his comments on the partnership and to learn more about Telenor’s rollout plans.