Mozilla said it will cease to develop Firefox OS and discontinue sales of Firefox-based handsets.
“Firefox OS proved the flexibility of the web, scaling from low-end smartphones all the way up to HD TVs,” said Mozilla in a statement provided to TechCrunch.
“However, we weren’t able to offer the best user experience possible and so we will stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels.” The company reiterated that it was proud of the platform and what it was able to accomplish. Moreover, Mozilla will “continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices” with open source software.
In March of this year, Mozilla announced a distribution agreement with Verizon Wireless. That agreement apparently never resulted in bringing Firefox OS devices to the U.S. market. Mozilla’s decision follows recent upheaval at Jolla, which developed SailfishOS and is nowin a state of hiatus.
Neither Sailfish nor Firefox was able to catch on with consumers in the face of competition from Android and iOS, which together account for about 97% of the market.
