T-Mobile to launch its first phone with Firefox OS

T-Mobile says it is preparing to begin its rollout of phones based on Mozilla's Firefox operating system, offering the first one in Eastern Europe. T-Mobile will put the Alcatel One Touch on sale in Poland Friday, PC World reported Thursday. The launch will follow by just two weeks the global debut of the new smartphone OS by Telefonia in Spain with the ZTE Open Firefox handset. Applications for Firefox phones, whose OS is based on Internet technologies, are written in Web languages rather than the current practice in which apps are typically written and compiled for each different smartphone OS platform. Mozilla is promoting the openness of Firefox OS as a better alternative for low-end smartphones, and said it plans to have Firefox OS phones on sale in Germany, Hungary and Greece by the end of the year. Telefonica has said it plans to launch Firefox OS handsets in several South American markets this year.