14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone 7, the mobile operating system that Redmond-based software giant Microsoft launched last year, is set to receive a new, better browser, but that won't be Firefox Mobile. During the ongoing year, Microsoft plans on delivering the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) mobile application to its Windows Phone 7 users, but this is the only new browser that would land on the platform.
Many might have hoped for Mozilla's Firefox to make an appearance on Windows Phone 7 as well, but the company has just confirmed that it does not plan on making such a move.
According to a recent article on the OnSoftware blog, Jay Sullivan, VP of Products at Mozilla Corporation himself explained that no Firefox is planned for Microsoft's mobile platform for the foreseeable future.
“At the moment we are focusing on Android in terms of the browser,” Jay Sullivan reportedly commented.
“For those other platforms we may do things like Firefox Home, so you can fire up any browser and get to your Firefox data. We’re not looking to bringing Firefox itself to Windows Phone 7 at this point.”
Last week, Mozilla released the final version of their Firefox 4 mobile browser for Google's Android operating system, which can also be downloaded and installed on devices running under Maemo (on Nokia N900, to be more precise).
Apparently, the company would be set to enhance the experience that mobile browser is capable of offering to its users, and all of the features and add-ons available for the application are a proof of that.
The application was released with HTML 5 support included into the mix, along with features like the Awesome Bar, Firefox Sync support, and more.
Unfortunately, none of these would make it to Windows Phone 7 on Firefox, something that might not come too much as a surprise for some.
After all, Mozilla did announce last year that it might not come up with a browser for the mobile OS, even if it was working at that time on a flavor of the application for Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform.
However, when IE9 would land on Windows Phone 7, it should bring along HTML 5 support, along with Silverlight integration, and other enhancements more.