Five months after launching its first mobile device, the First Else, amid much fanfare, Emblaze has decided to virtually eliminate its mobile business, Else (formerly Emblaze Mobile).
According to a report in Globes, Israel’s financial daily, the company said that its board of directors decided not to make any further investment in the device because the company was unable to reach agreements with mobile carriers around the world.
In a notice to the London Stock Exchange, Emblaze said: “Due to critical delays in deliveries and the current status of the project, the board has now decided to cease any further investment towards manufacturing of the First Else mobile device and to concentrate efforts only on licensing the Else Intuition platform and technology in order to realize its potential upside.”
The First Else, which took five years to develop, was launched at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. The device, with its 3.5-inch screen, 5-megapixel camera, GPS, and 3.5G connectivity, was designed to be a more intuitive mobile device than any others now on the market. Company CEO Amire Kupervas told ISRAEL21c in February that the First Else was a “game changer” in the world of cellular devices.