Smartphone maker OSOM shutting down this week

It’s been a tough week for OSOM Merchandise. The corporate has been embroiled in authorized controversy stemming from a lawsuit filed by a former govt. Now, Android Authority has discovered that the corporate is successfully shutting down later this week.

OSOM Merchandise was fashioned in 2020 following the disbanding of Important, a smartphone startup led by Andy Rubin, the founding father of Android. Important collapsed following the poor gross sales of its first smartphone, the Important Cellphone, in addition to a lack of confidence in Rubin as a consequence of allegations of sexual misconduct at his earlier stint at Google. Though Important as an organization was on its approach out after Rubin’s departure, lots of its most gifted {hardware} designers and software program engineers remained on the firm, searching for one other alternative to construct one thing new.

In 2020, the previous head of R&D at Important, Jason Keats, together with a number of different former executives and workers got here collectively to kind OSOM, which stands for “Out of Sight, Out of Thoughts.” The identify mirrored their need to create privacy-focused merchandise such because the OSOM Privateness Cable, a USB-C cable with a change to disable information signaling, and the OSOM OV1, an Android smartphone with a lot of privateness and security-focused options.

To fund its mass manufacturing, advertising, and future growth, OSOM partnered with one of many largest cryptocurrency platforms on the market — Solana — to launch the OV1 because the Saga, full with a number of blockchain-related options. Someday in March of this 12 months, nonetheless, Solana allegedly determined not to decide on OSOM as soon as once more for the event of the Saga Two, placing the corporate’s future in jeopardy.

This marked the start of a dramatic downward spiral, which OSOM tried to reverse by pivoting in the direction of making an “AI-powered digital camera” as its subsequent product and promoting itself to HP. Nonetheless, neither possibility panned out and the corporate failed to boost more cash. After exhausting many choices, it seems the corporate’s funds have largely dried up. Consequently, Keats and different executives at OSOM made the choice to successfully shut down the corporate.

Based on a number of sources, OSOM executives held an inner assembly yesterday saying the choice to shutter the corporate. Most workers might be laid off this Friday, although just a few engineers will stay as contractors so the corporate can meet its obligation with Solana to push out one other safety replace for the Saga in December. The staff who’re being laid off have been advised they might obtain severance and could be eligible for COBRA, each normal practices after an organization undergoes mass downsizing.

Android Authority has additionally discovered that Keats addressed the many allegations of monetary misconduct levied towards himself in a latest lawsuit filed by Mary Stone Ross, OSOM’s former Chief Privateness Officer. The lawsuit alleges that a lot of OSOM’s monetary woes will be blamed on Keats’ spending habits, which he vehemently denies. In an announcement, a spokesperson for OSOM stated that the corporate was “conscious of the outlandish allegations by a former worker” and was “look[ing] ahead to disproving them in courtroom.”

With OSOM closing down, any hopes that the corporate would produce the Saga Two for Solana are lifeless. Nonetheless, it’s attainable that Solana Cell will discover (or has already discovered) a unique companion to create the gadget. Solana Cell has not commented publicly on the matter, although, so we have no idea what their plans are going ahead.