Mozilla Will Debut Firefox OS in Five Countries in June

Mozilla, the nonprofit foundation behind the Firefox browser, is bringing its engineering acumen to bear on a new mobile operating system, Firefox OS. And it plans to debut this year.

But when exactly does the company plan to launch it? And where? During his appearance at the opening of our D: Dive Into Mobile conference on Monday, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs said the company is planning a first-wave rollout of the OS that will begin in just a few months.

“We plan to launch in five countries in June and 11 more by the end of the year,” Kovacs said. “We plan to hit Venezuela, Poland, Brazil, Portugal and Spain. … We’ll hit the U.S. in 2014.”

Why target those markets and not bigger ones like the United States?

“In Silicon Valley we tend to see the world through high-end devices,” Kovacs said. “But that’s not true in the rest of the world. So in the short term, we’re launching in emerging markets where Firefox is particularly strong. … It didn’t make sense for us to launch a version-one device around the world.”