Mozilla is cancelling the launch of "Metro" Firefox, its browser version for Windows 8 touch-screen user interface, because no one is using the software's beta version.
"As the team built and tested and refined the product, we've been watching Metro's adoption. From what we can see, it's pretty flat. On any given day we have, for instance, millions of people testing pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, but we've never seen more than 1,000 active daily users in the Metro environment," said Johnathan Nightingale, vice president of Firefox, in a blog post.
According to Nightingale, distribution of "Metro" Firefox is not a problem. However, the version has not been through real-world testing. Possible bugs and other flaws that could come out on the beta testing were not yet seen nor fixed. If the launching and shipping progressed and lots of bugs were discovered afterward, that would require the company a lot of follow-up engineering and QA effort, which they must maintain for long. That move could place the company in a good fight but in a losing battle -- a significant investment but low impact.
"This gives us a hard choice," added Nightingale.
Though cancelling the launch opens up risks of struggling to catch up in the future, the company still moved on with the plan as it is better to start from scratch again than to risk real cost of investment in a platform or service that have shown no or little sign of adoption.
Conversely, the company will not start from zero as the code will continue.
According to Wall Street Journal, instead of pouring many efforts on the "Metro," the software company has decided to shift its focus on projects with the most impact and needs improvements, such as the classic Firefox version for Windows desktop.
