Mobile phones take a back seat as gadget show goes soft on hardware

Editor's note: Jason Jenkins is an Editor at CNET, the number one brand in consumer tech. He can be found tweeting @jenkojenkins. Follow CNET's coverage of the Mobile World Congress here.

Barcelona, Spain (CNN) -- I came to Mobile World Congress expected to be wowed by lots of shiny new gadgets, but I'm leaving impressed by the seemingly less sexy subject of mobile operating systems. Turns out there's a lot happening here.

A lot of the buzz was focused around the Firefox OS launch on Sunday. A rival to Android, iOS and Windows Phone, it seems unlikely it will get much traction in the West. But in places where people have yet to buy a smartphone it might stand a chance -- it's intended to run on less powerful phones that are cheap to make and sell.

One of the aspects of the launch that surprised most people was the number of manufacturers and network operators backing the OS.

Tell us: What's your dream smartphone feature?

PayPal's mobile bet

FC Barcelona: More than social media

BlackBerry's comeback battle

That's a sign of how fed up those parties are getting of being told what to do by Apple and Google, and how worried they are that they are being increasingly locked out of the profits of the smartphone sector. They are lashing themselves to Firefox OS in the hope that it will lead to more money for them down the line.

Also shown off for the first time was Tizen, Samsung and Intel's alternative to Android.

Due later this year, Tizen has had a long history of false starts, so we were excited to take a look at it. It essentially looks a lot like Android, but seemed pretty janky to us and a long way from being ready for release to consumers. It wasn't the best of debuts for something so important.

Read more: Will we ever have battery-free mobiles?

But for me and the rest of the CNET team, the star of the show is something very few people will have heard of.

Ubuntu Touch is an operating system for mobiles and tablets coming in October. It doesn't have the big names attached to it like Firefox OS and Tizen, but it feels a lot slicker to us.

We have just named it the best of show and we're hoping that it is something we'll see in the real world very soon.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jason Jenkins