Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2010. The Apple versus Android rivalry, Tuenti’s recent purchase by Telefónica and the forecast that Facebook and Tuenti would enter the phone business reflect that moment.
The makers of the Firefox browser are bringing to market the first open-source smartphone, the Seabird, which marks the beginning of changes to come in the phone business. The new ideas of the tech giants are kicking off a marketing war for the top spots in the future of business.
There’s no doubt that the Mozilla phone looks less like a mobile phone and more like a mini laptop, and they haven’t skimped on details: it has all the extras a latest-generation phone can carry, plus a mini mouse, a projector that casts images onto an external surface and, of course, the browser (Firefox).
The big internet companies are entering a relentless race toward the new business opportunity that mobile phones offer. If Apple already has a headache with Android (Google), it will now have other worries too, because its competition includes not only Google and Microsoft but anyone who, without being in the technology sector, brings their know-how and teams up with others who know the field.
Facebook will end up as a rival, and I’m sure Tuenti (a Spanish social network), now that it has been bought by Telefónica, will also get into these new business ideas. And then there are all the players who see themselves as small in this business, small only until the big ones let them grow.
As Emilio Botín puts it, business is a game, and in the end the best player wins.
Further reading
Featured image: Johan Larsson, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
