Mozilla has abandoned its effort to create an open-source IoT (internet of things) platform with the dissolution of its Connected Devices group, a move that has resulted in about 50 layoffs and provides a lesson about the competitive stakes already present in the IoT market.
The Connected Devices division was tied to Mozilla's Firefox OS project, a largely failed effort to move beyond browsers and compete with Android on lower-end mobile devices. The Connected Devices wiki page, which is still up, presents the IoT vision Mozilla ultimately failed to realize:
Our mission for 2020 is to influence the design of the devices and protocols that make up the Internet of Things to ensure that they embody the values enumerated by the Mozilla manifesto, including openness, accessibility, decentralization, interoperability, security, privacy and individual empowerment.
To achieve this mission, we will:
Build internet-connected devices that empower individuals, enrich their lives, and magnify the public benefit of the internet;
Leverage our experience building devices to develop an open-source platform for the Internet of Things that promotes security, privacy, decentralization, interoperability, accessibility and openness; and
Engage commercial partners to bring our products to market and to drive widespread adoption of our platform.
Constellation belives many of those sentiments are welcome and needed for IoT to be successful in the long term. But only a handful of IoT-related subprojects had been in the works at the time Mozilla decided to scrap the platform effort. The organization maintains that it will still be involved in IoT, but said so in rather vague terms with a statement sent to Techcrunch:
IoT is clearly an emerging technology space, but it’s still early. We have shifted our internal approach to the IoT opportunity to step back from a focus on launching and scaling commercial products to one focused on research and advanced development, dissolving our Connected Devices initiative and incorporating our IoT explorations into an increased focus on Emerging Technologies.
One of those emerging technologies is Project Quantum, a project focused on building a next-generation web engine for Firefox that will improve performance—and perhaps help Mozilla gain back some market share from Google Chrome and other browsers.
Ultimately, Mozilla's IoT platform ambitions simply couldn't get enough attention and investment from the market, which saw a rash of activity last year among major vendors to shore up their own IoT strategies. Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland goes into depth on this topic in a new blog post, which is available here.
24/7 Access to Constellation Insights
Subscribe today for unrestricted access to expert analyst views on breaking news.