Before a single one has been sold.
Israeli firm Emblaze has announced that it's ceasing its investment in the ELSE smartphone that it unveiled last November.
The Linux-based handset never went on sale. According to Emblaze's statement:
"While there was encouraging interest in the device by potential partners, management was not able to confirm a deal on terms acceptable to Emblaze to proceed to the production of the device."
The statement also refers to "critical delays in deliveries and the current status of the project" as a reason for its canning.
Emblaze says it will refocus on licensing the ELSE Intuition platform that the handset was based on, while benefitting from "drastically" reduced operating and development costs.
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In truth, the news isn't a surprise. Emblaze was forced to deny reports in mid-June that ELSE was being axed, but admitted then that "The ELSE project is being monitored closely by management and required information shall be duly announced".
Now it has. It remains to be seen how successful licensing ELSE Intuition will be, given competition from Google's Android OS (which is free of licensing costs for handset makers), Windows Phone 7 and Symbian.
