Sony has released an experimental Firefox OS running on its entry-level Xperia E smartphone. Earlier this week, in a joint press release Sony and Telefonica, a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider, announced their plans of using the Mozilla Firefox operating system for their smartphone.

Sony also provided full details in the Sony Developer Blog about the ROM installation along with the architecture of the new OS and guidelines for developing apps.

Firefox OS is a new mobile operating system that is built entirely upon web standards and the company is interested in exploring this technology with Telefonica in an attempt to bring the power of the web to mobile.

"At Sony Mobile, we continue to evaluate innovative technologies that can help deliver the premium user experiences that Sony's consumers expect. Our engineers are now working with Firefox OS Mobile and HTML5, evolving technologies which show great potential," says Bob Ishida, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and head of Product Business Group at Sony Mobiles Communication.

"Now we are ready to share our initial experiments on Firefox OS with the tech community, to get valuable feedback. More importantly, we want to reach out to the application community and support the early adopters who can start to develop applications for Firefox OS. Therefore, Sony experts Andreas Sandblad and Per Astrand have put together an experimental Firefox OS ROM for you to flash on Xperia E", the developer blog reads.

The operating system is not entirely projected for daily use as it is still on experiment. The blog also says that some features such as radio connectivity, phone calls, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are not switched on or implemented in the Firefox OS. Along with these features, touch sensitivity is not fully calibrated and also the functionality of SD card might be unstable in the OS.

Key Features of Sony Xperia E

3.5 inch display at 320 X 480 pixels resolution
1GHz Qualcomm Cortex-A5 processor
Android 4.1 (Jelly Baan) operating system
4GB internal storage
3.2 megapixel camera
1530 mAh battery
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
3G, HSPA, EDGE/GPRS
Bluetooth with EDR

Sony has also released a video showing the Mozilla Firefox OS running on Xperia E smartphone.

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