The big contract manufacturer Foxconn, which is looking to diversify beyond Apple, said at a press conference Monday that it's developing over five devices including smartphones, TVs and large display boards using Mozilla's new Firefox mobile operating system, which would love to be an alternative to Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

Foxconn means to hire 500-1,000 engineers in Taiwan to develop web-based software for Firefox.

China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom and Singapore Telecommunications are also reportedly prepared to support the new widgetry.

Sony, Huawei and LG Electronics are committed to producing Firefox devices. And ZTE and TCL Communications, the Chinese handset companies, mean to start selling Firefox smartphones in Latin American soon.

The devices Foxconn makes will be for client brands.

Mozilla wants phone makers to produce sub-$50 phones for emerging markets. It's got the notion of satisfying the next two billion first-time smartphone users or at least garner a 10% share of the global market.

The Firefox OS is supposed to consume less power and memory than either Android or iOS and offer the same performance on cheaper hardware. Firefox apps should also run on both iOS and Android.

Google, in turn, is supposed to launch more devices based on its Chrome OS, which like Firefox derives from a browser.