The First Else, which we had spent some time with at Mobile World Congress and the Consumer Electronics Show before that, has been officially canceled.
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. 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.
It’s kind of sad, I know – not only did the First Else promise to bring to market a UI that finally breaks out of the icon grid layout that we’ve grown complacent to, but it also could have showed that hey, LiMo phones can be cool too. The marketing, though almost overbearing in just how “different” they claimed the First Else to be, was mostly accurate and extremely well-done. Check out their site to take a look before it’s all taken down.
The licensing potential should give Emblaze a bit more flexibility, without being bogged down with dealing directly with OEM manufacturers and carriers. Android is hugely popular these days, and could give Intuition a chance at life without the uphill battle of selling a new platform from scratch. Alternatively, the Access Linux Platform on which Intution is based also has some history with Palm and webOS. ALP splintered off from Palm after Palm OS died, but before webOS got started; it sure would be interesting to see Intuition reunited as an optional UI on Palm’s first phone in partnership with HP. There are some common Linux elements there that could make integration a little less painful than elsewhere, and HP could certainly afford it. Call it wishful thinking.
Apparently the guys behind the First Else, Emblaze, were going after Apple and Microsoft for infringing upon video conferencing patents. They’re still trying to squeeze royalties from either company, which would give Emblaze some revenue to stay alive with, but odds are they’ve been barking up this tree at least since the November 2009 announcement of the First Else, and probably won’t get anywhere. Emblaze is also caught up in some tax trouble in the UK – it sounds like revenue & customs is withholding 8.8 million pounds in tax refunds.
The hardware that got canned had 32 GB of flash memory, a 3.5″ display with 854 x 480 resolution, a Cortex A8 processor, Wi-Fi b/g, tri-band HSPA, quad-band EDGE, 5 megapixel camera, and A-GPS. Here are a few videos of it in action. Too bad, especially since the market for excluding lefties has recently exploded.