Alcatel OneTouch Fire E is sold in Russia since November 13, 2014

[Nickolai Leschov]

Hello,

Are Mozillians aware that Alcatel OneTouch Fire E is being sold in
Russia, since
November 13, 2014
<http://www.iguides.ru/main/gadgets/google/megafon_nachal_prodazhi_smartfona_alcatel_onetouch_fire_e_na_firefox_os/>,
at least? It is sold through Megafon, one of the 'big three' Russian cell
carriers: the phone is available at their online as well as
brick-and-mortar stores, for 3990 roubles, which is about $67 today (launch
price was 4990 r.). Free shipping is included when ordered online. It is
the first Firefox OS phone officially available in Russia (well, short of ZTE
Open C <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/devices/#zte_openc> which
was released on eBay and sold out shortly afterwards, anyway).

I am asking because it looked like Mozilla was happy to celebrate every
launch on their blog and elsewhere, but I didn't see any mention of this
one. Also, because I contacted someone from Mozilla before and they told me
there were no plans to release in Russia, so this one came unexpected.

Best regards,
Nickolai Leschov
St.-Petersburg, Russia

[Janet Swisher]

Hi Nickolai,

Sales in Russia are mentioned in this blog post:
http://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/12/firefox-os-expands-to-nearly-30-countries/

Russia is also in the country selector on this page:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/devices/

Choosing that brings up links for eBay and MegaFon. So, this is a
legitimate, supported sales channel.

I don't know why there wasn't any announcement about launching in
Russia, whereas there was a blog post about launching in the Philippines
at about the same time. In many cases, partnership agreements dictate
that the partner is the one who gets to make announcements, and
constrain Mozilla from making its own public statements. I don't know if
that's the situation in this case, but it might be. That might also be
why the person you talked to previously said there were no plans to
release in Russia -- either they didn't know or they couldn't talk about it.

I hope that clarifies things a bit. If you want to inquire about press
announcements and coverage, contact pr...@mozilla.com.

> _______________________________________________
> Evangelism mailing list
> Evang...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/evangelism

--
Janet Swisher <mailto:jREMOVE...@mozilla.com>
Mozilla Developer Network <https://developer.mozilla.org>
MDN Community Manager

[Nickolai Leschov]

>
> I hope that clarifies things a bit.

Sure, it does! Thank you very much for the clarification.

Can you, by chance, share some information on when and where OneTouch Fire
*S* is going to be released?

Best,
Nickolai