Mozilla 'Boot to Gecko' prototype hardware demonstrated

Telefonica today unveiled prototype hardware running Mozilla's browser-based 'Boot to Gecko' operating system for smartphones at a press conference today at the Mobile World Congress show (see CNET News roundup) in Barcelona, Spain.

Here's a video demonstration of the current hardware and software.

Mozilla's Boot to Gecko (B2G) project is an operating system that runs HTML5, JavaScript and CSS directly on device hardware without the need for an intermediate OS layer.

Based on the above demo, I'm left asking myself a few questions:

Where does Mozilla see this fitting into the bigger smartphone picture? How will it get a foot in the door?
Who's the target audience? This seems to me more like a feature phone than a smartphone OS.
How does it fit into the current market (in particular when pitted against iOS and Android)?
Does Mozilla have the cash backing to have a shot at bringing this to market and making a success of it?
Is Mozilla too late to the game? Market seems very tightly stitched up to me.
How many hardware partners is Mozilla hoping to bring on board?
Has Mozilla considered the litigation dangers of entering into such a fiercely competitive market?

Interesting demo, but B2G obviously has a long way to go still and there are still a huge number of questions that remain unanswered.

What do you think?

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