Giving the mobile Web browser competition a shot in the arm, Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer said in a blog post that Mozilla has big plans for the mobile Web. Yes, a mobile version of Firefox is in the works, and should be ready next year.The post showed up in Schroepfer's blog yesterday and outlined all of Mozilla's mobile plans, including updates on its technology, hiring, products, and partners. According to Schroepfer, there's a lot in store.

He said:

Up until very recently device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up. Being able to leverage all the investments in the Mozilla platform across both desktops and devices is the right approach. There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance, and compatibility. There is still *plenty* of room for innovation.

I agree, there is still lots of room for improvement. Just yesterday Opera, Freescale ,and NEC announced their own plans to improve the mobile browsing and mobile video experience.

Mozilla is promising a better experience, too. It has hired two new developers to head its mobile services operations and plans to offer a mobile version of Firefox that is as close to the desktop version as possible. Schroepfer said mobile Firefox will be able to run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow others to build rich applications via XUL.

Part of the reason Mozilla held off on entering the market was that mobile devices didn't have the right memory or CPU specs to make Mozilla happy. Now that many phones -- and smartphones in particular -- are shipping with more memory and faster processors, Mozilla thinks now is the time.

It certainly is.

The iPhone's Safari browser really raised the bar when it comes to the mobile browsing experience. The Nokia browser (which is based on Safari) also performs well. Google is working on a mobile browser. Microsoft already has a mobile version of Internet Explorer. Opera is stepping up the competition. Mozilla will be a little late to the game, but late is better than never.