Looks like Amazon finally admitted defeat on the Fire Phone

Amazon is said to be halting production of the smartphone, as well as laying off its engineers

The Amazon Fire Phone has had a rough life.  It was released in June of last year to pretty harsh reviews sales turned out to be abysmal. Any hope that it would repeat the success of Amazon's Kindle Tablet faded quickly and now it looks like the end of the line has finally come.

Amazon has fired dozens of engineers who were working on the Fire Phone, the Wall Street Journa lreported on Wednesday, as it has halted production on the project

The workers had been employed at Lab126, the company's secretive hardware-development center in Silicon Valley. This is the first time that there were any layoffs at the division, which was founded 11 years old, back in 2004. 

This news comes a little over a year after it was reported that Amazon was going to be making a $55 million investment in its A2Z Development Center, which is is an offshoot of Lab126, to further develop its hardware capabilities.

It's not only the Fire Phone that is going to be cut back. Other projects that the company had also has scaled back or halted, including work on a large-screen tablet.

In fact the entire division is being reorganized, with two hardware units being combined into one. There are 3,000 employees working at Lab126, and it is unknown how many were let go in this purge.

No matter what else is being halted, the Amazon Fire Phone is obviously the most notable device being shut down, and it represents a monumental failure for the company.

Sales of the phone were so bad that that Amazon dropped the price to 99 cents a whole two months after its debut. In October of last year it was revealed that sales missed so badly, with only 35,000 sold in the quarter, that the company had to take $170 million write off just to cover the loss. 

That is not to say that Amazon is giving up on hardware by any means. It has seen tremendous success with its Kindle tablets, and the company is still said to be working on projects that include high-end computer for the kitchen, which is code-named Kabinet. I is designed to serve as a hub for an Internet-connected home and capable of taking voice commands for tasks like ordering merchandise from Amazon.com.

It is also said to still be working on a 3D tablet, as well as Kindle battery that will have a 2 year charge. 

The cuts are also a sign of changing Amazon. The company was famous for not ever showing much profit, always putting whatever money it made back into the company, specifically to develop its products. In the most recent quarter, however, Amazon suddenly started to cut those costs, resulting in $92 million worth of profit.

VatorNews reached out to Amazon for confirmation of this report but the company declined to comment.

(Image source: abcnews.go.com)