As income fails to materialize, it’s time for some lays off for programmers and warnings for partners.

No Funding

The challenger to the dominant Google and Apple, Acadine Technologies which tried offering phone users a software alternative is on its last legs. The company is materializing the last month’s warnings of possible layoffs which would mean the entire engineering workforce of the company is set to lose their jobs.

Other than this the Hong Kong‐based company is ceasing operations as of now for its H5OS mobile operating system. The company told its chip making partner Qualcomm, “Due to an unforeseen situation, where we did not receive the funding that was contractually committed to us, all engineering work on H5OS will be suspended at Acadine immediately.”

Second Blow

This is second death for the Firefox OS as executives from Acadine had left Mozilla, the best known Firefox browser before, in order to develop an alternate OS hoping to power smartwatches and lower‐end phones. Although consumers seem to be happy with their iphones and Android devices, Acadine wanted to loosen the grip of Google and Apple on the market.

Early Expansion

By setting up offices at Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Palo Alto, California, Acadine Technologies made some headway. The company also hired more than 100 employees and had registered customers for usage of H5OS in phones and smartwatches in the North America market.

The Fall Out

However, after receiving only a fraction of the $100 million investment from the Chinese investment firm Tshingua Unigroup International the efforts faltered. The investment firm wanted to control stake in Acadine and this uncertainty of its stake hampered the fund raising efforts. The company seems to be negotiating with other investors, but that process was taking time and the present situation couldn’t be averted. Without much possibility of fresh funding, Acadine’s chances of survival seem dim.