Mozilla gives up on Firefox OS, lays off 50

Mozilla has laid off a team of about 50 people working on bringing Firefox OS to "connected devices" and is ending its attempts to build a commercial platform for such devices reports CNet.

Firefox OS originally started life as Mozilla's attempt at a smartphone platform. The ambition was to create a free and open source platform that used Web technology to build applications, suitable for low cost phones in emerging markets. Although a few products did materialize, Firefox OS was rapidly squeezed out by Android, so just over a year ago Mozilla repositioned the operating system. Instead of being a smartphone platform, it was aimed at devices such as smart TVs.

While devices from Panasonic did ship, Mozilla doesn't appear to have made much of a splash in this market either.