If you were hoping to get your hands on a Firefox OS phone and are living in the United States, you're going to be disappointed. According to Mozilla, there are no plans to launch any Firefox OS phones in the United States. This is despite previous statements that devices running the OS would arrive in the United States in 2014.
CNet cites Mozilla Executive Chair Mitchell Baker as saying "currently, there are no plans to launch in the U.S." This is a direct contradiction of previous statements made by former CEO Gary Kovacs at Mobile World Congress and at AllThingsD earlier this year. Speaking at MWC, Kovacs said the phones would arrive in 2014. At the D: Dive Into Mobile conference-, Kovacs said that it didn't make sense to launch version 1.0 all over the world.
"In the early days -- by the way, we're talking about a version 1.0 product -- our whole mission is to stimulate the ecosystem, just like we did with the desktop browser," he said. "Once the standards were set, connected users exploded. In the short term, it'll be brand appeal -- we're launching in areas where Firefox has good brand recognition."
Still, just because there are no official plans to bring Firefox OS to the USA, that doesn't mean we'll be left out in the cold completely. Back in August, ZTE's Firefox OS-based 'ZTE Open' smartphone was made available on eBay for users in both North America and the UK. It sold out in a single weekend. It's now back in stock and on sale (with an $80 price tag).
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