Android Phones Will Get Firefox Fennec in Late 2010, WinPhone 7 May be Next

From DailyTech: The Android mobile operating system may get a boost late this fall from Mozilla, which is developing a mobile version of Firefox (dubbed Fennec) for the Google handset OS. The Open Handset Alliance, the group comprised of Google and other mobile phone companies, made the browser possible by recently releasing an NDK (native development kit) which allowed native C/C++ code to be incorporated into apps for the first time.

Previously, all apps had been written in Java. Java is considered by many app developers to be inferior both in speed and library functionality for mobile apps to C/C++. The iPhone, one of Google's key competitors, already uses a flavor of C in its apps (Objective C, to be precise).

With C support in place, Mozilla decided it was practical to port Fennec to Android. Mozilla's Mobile VP Jay Sullivan describes, "It's a modern OS, and it's a great fit with us. It's the type of platform that has a high affinity with the early adopter, and it's seen a lot of uptake. Android has been built on a Java platform, whereas [Firefox Mobile] is based on C and C++ code. Until last year when [the Open Handset Alliance] released the NDK (native development kit) which allowed native code as part of the app, it was simply impossible."

Mozilla is also eying other platforms as Fennec candidates. Among them is Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Microsoft just announced Windows Phone 7 Series, which is likely to be the most anticipated mobile release of the fall. Windows Phone 7 Series scraps the previous code base in favor of an OS based on the Zune HD's operating system.

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