R.I.P. Firefox Smartphone, Long Live Firefox OS IoT Michael Kwan December 8, 2015 News Another one bites of the dust. While some alternatives have come and gone over the years, the smartphone industry has largely coalesced into a race between iOS and Android with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile/Phone platform coming in at a distant third. With even BlackBerry on the cusp of abandoning its own operating system, we probably shouldn’t be all that surprised that Mozilla has given up on further development of its Firefox smartphone platform. That’s it. Kaput. Mozilla announced earlier today that both development and sale of smartphones powered by Firefox OS will stop entirely. This follows more than two years of trying to break into the competitive, yet potentially lucrative smartphone world. They were largely targeting the lower end of the market, particularly in emerging markets, and putting a heavier focus on web-based apps rather than native apps. As Mozilla kept trying to push the price point of its Firefox smartphone offerings as low as possible, other companies started to step in with remarkably affordable Android phones and Mozilla just couldn’t keep up. After all, if you were spending the same amount of money on a cheap phone, wouldn’t you rather gain access to all things Google? The silver lining is that while Mozilla isn’t going to make its Firefox smartphone anymore, the Firefox OS is hardly dead. Instead, it could be seeing new life as a platform to power the Internet of Things. That’s what happened with webOS, for example, since LG is using webOS on several of it smart TVs. Similarly, Panasonic has a Firefox OS smart TV too. This could be further expanded to other connected devices, perhaps inching into segments currently populated by Nest, Belkin’s WeMo, and more. Via TC and The Verge Share This With The World!
