DigiTimes
Date: 17 July 2015
By: Daniel Shen, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES

Mozilla COO and Taiwan general manager Gon Li have resigned and set up a new company and recruited about 30 engineers from the Mozilla Firefox OS R&D team in Taiwan, almost suspending the R&D operation, according to industry sources.

Established in 2011, Mozilla’s Taiwan subsidiary has more than 150 employees of which nearly 90% are responsible for developing Firefox OS, accounting for over half of Mozilla’s global Firefox OS R&D workforce, the sources said.

Firefox OS has won adoption by vendors including LG Electronics, ZTE, TCL Communication Technology, Huawei Device, Intex, Spice, Symphony, Zen Mobile and Cherry Mobile, which have launched Firefox OS smartphones in Japan, India, China and countries in Latin America, Europe and Southeast Asia through cooperation with 14 mobile telecom carriers, the sources indicated.

Firefox OS smartphones have so far sold well in India and Latin America, the sources said.