This past week I had the wonderful opportunity of attending Internet & Mobile World Bucharest, as part of the team promoting Firefox OS. We were stationed at the future corner (along with someone demoing the Google Glass, and producers of drones and 3D printers). It was an awesome but exhausting experience. What blew my mind was the public interest in Firefox OS.

IMWorld was mostly a business event. Companies trying to sell stuff to people looking to sell other things to the same companies. We stood out as one of the few companies not selling anything. We demoed Flame phones, and the Infocus New Tab. We talked to people ranging from CEOs to app developers to regular folks interested in a personal phone.

Interest in the phones was tremendous. Developers were excited that they could integrate Firefox OS into their existing PhoneGap process, use WebIDE in the browser to start development, and by the fact that their applications could run on Android or Windows or Mac without changing a single line of code.

Regular smartphone users were really excited by the availability of common applications they use, by the easy to use interface and by the prospects of buying such a phone.

We also promoted the Matchstick HDMI stick which is currently on Kickstarter. I have high hopes for that one.

Anyway, upon discussing with hundreds of people excited about the work we're doing and eager to use and support for our products, I am more confident than ever that we will succeed in our goals. Firefox OS looked like a long shot when it was first announced, another nice-idea mobile project that would never see the light of day. A couple of years later, with over a dozen devices on the market, selling in more than 20 countries, people are starting to pay attention and are baffled by the fact that you can make a difference in the current mobile landscape. I can't wait to see the next few years of Firefox OS.

(Update) Thanks to +Stefania Ioana Chiorean +Gabriel Ivanica +Marcela Oniga +Andreea Popescu +Alex Lakatos for doing an awesome job at the booth, and +Christian Heilmann for a great talk.

Also, thanks to the people at the booth next to ours, Mode360, who did a 360 degree scan of our phone and mascot.