Mozilla to kill Firefox OS in May to focus on IoT

Goodbye, Firefox OS. We barely knew ye. Today Mozilla announced that their smartphone experiment Firefox OS would be closing up shop for good. The company says that although they will no longer be developing and selling Firefox smartphones, they are going to continue efforts to develop technology that interconnects devices and contributes to the ever-broadening landscape of the ‘Internet of Things.’

This announcement arrived to us in bits and pieces via tweets as it was announced at a Mozilla developer event in Florida, “Mozlando.” While we didn’t have anything firm to stand on for a while, an official release backing these claims was published by Mozilla, confirming that the company would be taking a different direction.

Firefox OS was designed to be a champion of entry-level smartphones. It’s web-first approach was unique to the mobile market, but failed to develop a following since its launch in 2013. The operating system was primarily pushed in the developing world and in countries that were late to adopt mobile tech and where low-cost handsets were selling like hotcakes. Sales weren’t very good even in these markets, however, as the company found themselves out-bargained by a slew of other OEM’s who dominated regional markets with extremely inexpensive handsets.

From a business standpoint, the Firefox OS was something of a failure, so it’s good to see the company cutting themselves free of the initiative and re-investing their efforts into other areas of interest.

What are your thoughts regarding the demise of Firefox OS? Let us know your thoughts regarding this development in the comments below!