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Comments: 175 +- Mobile: Arrington's CrunchPad Dies on Monday November 30, @01:08PM
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adeelarshad82 writes "Michael Arrington announced the death of the CrunchPad on Monday morning in a blog post heavily spiced with angst and drama. According to Arrington, the Crunchpad, a 12-inch Web tablet expected to be priced at about $300, was just days away from launch. At the last minute, however, Arrington received an email from Chandra Rathakrishnan, the chief executive of manufacturing partner Fusion Garage, apparently trying to cut Arrington out of the product on the eve of the launch. Fusion Garage, according to Arrington, wanted to market the device itself under its own name; which obviously was the deal breaker. Arrington claims that the company had overcome obstacles at every stage in the business such as deals with Intel, retail launch, securing venture capital and angel investments. Interesting bit is that some were already speculating that the Crunchpad was not real."
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Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:4, Insightful)
It wouldn't be a surprise if the whole thing was just a hoax. Like the other article says:
Arrington, who is not a journalist (and has never professed to be one), regularly talks to financial guys, with close ties to virtually every major technology company. He's also plugged into these same companies at even higher levels. Oh, and he also invests in companies he writes about. At times, this can make his information incredibly prescient and also highly self-serving. The problem is, no one can tell the difference.
And a few days before launch and dies for such a stupid reason? Please.
Re:Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:5, Insightful)
It wouldn't be a surprise if the whole thing was just a hoax. Like the other article says:
Arrington, who is not a journalist (and has never professed to be one), regularly talks to financial guys, with close ties to virtually every major technology company. He's also plugged into these same companies at even higher levels. Oh, and he also invests in companies he writes about. At times, this can make his information incredibly prescient and also highly self-serving. The problem is, no one can tell the difference.
And a few days before launch and dies for such a stupid reason? Please.
Then what were we seeing in the videos [youtube.com] on Youtube [youtube.com]? Really expensive tablet PCs? They couldn't get that down to $200? I'm just confused as to what his motivation would be ... I think inflating your stock with a fake product and then dumping all the stock you have before it crashes would look hilariously like insider trading. So what's going on? What do they mean by "plugged into these same companies at even higher levels"?
... which are pretty heavy claims. I kind of get the feeling this isn't a hoax and there will be serious fallout one way or the other if they don't iron things out between each other. IP suit if it launches and fruitless R&D and production money if it doesn't.
In his 'rant' he's also calling these people out on infringing on his (and other people's) IP if they launch
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Re:Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:4, Informative)
Arrington is a Stanford educated lawyer with former clients such as Pixar and Apple. If he's making claims like this in his blog, they're not going to be spurious. He'll know what he's doing.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Playing the Devil's advocate: He also knows just how far he can push the legal envelope and that also takes well thought out claims and statements. In other words, just because he is a Stanford educated lawyer with former clients such as Pixar and Apple, doesn't mean he is incapable of these acts.
Re:Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing you've never started a company. When you do, you'll find out that a fair number of your friends turn into psychopaths when money is involved. This is why the best number of partners in any new venture is 1. I got screwed by AMIS in a somewhat similar situation. We co-developed the Express Array using our technology from cell design to routing. The first chip came out and worked 8 months after we started this very aggressive project. The day the chip worked, AMIS basically said "we don't need you anymore. Fuck off and die now." For AMIS, the entire project was delayed a year. It was incredible, unexplainable stupidity. And yet, it's an entirely common story.
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Re:Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just going to post something to the same effect. A good friend of mine was pushed out of his company by his partner, board, and angel investors when his invention was close to launch. Another friend turned evil on me when our own start-up company was approached about acquisition. Even though we were 50-50 partners, I still feel like I got shafted. And every slashdot reader knows that Windows is dominant not because of its technical merits, but because of legal -- and illegal -- bullying. Screw or be screwed seems to be the name of the game. Sometimes it seems the only way to win is not to play.
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Re:Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I had mod points I'd award a quadrillion of them for:
I'm guessing you've never started a company. When you do, you'll find out that a fair number of your friends turn into psychopaths when money is involved. This is why the best number of partners in any new venture is 1.
I've seen this too many times. For anyone who hans't: If you want to know what a partnership is like, here's what you do: Come up with a great idea, then work yourself nearly to death over 18 months to two years while ignoring your family, friends, and health. When the idea has been made tangible and needs just a few minor tweaks, hand over all of your work to someone you'll never want to see again.
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Re:Seeing Arrington's rants... (Score:4, Informative)
Problem is that without partners, you do not have any leverage whatsoever. I am sorry for playing bullshit bingo, but leverage means here that with two partners, you can do more together than each partner separately could have done. Doing everything yourself is a good way to limit yourself or put a weakness in your product (because for instance you know jack shit about electronics which plays a nontrivial role in your product).
I am a business owner and have run a couple of projects for clients. I do not have any partners but I have the same supplier for over two years. We have a client-supplier relation but even there, you need the combination of rules and understanding. But lately I notice that we will never grow beyond calculating costs for the next project. You need partners for that.
If that is fine with you, then do it yourself. I know I will. I am just not a team player and way too bone headed and authoritative to play nice with a partner. However that means a big limitation (besides the obvious strengths).
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The only way to ensure that you will move forward along with a company you started is to ensure that you are not a replaceable asset to the company. Once big money investors get involved, you can expect that any founders will be pushed out the door unless they have real long term value. Technical knowledge of an existing invention != value in a lot of cases. Technical knowledge of a future, more profitable invention might, but even then there must be faith in your ability to complete the task combined wi
Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity (Score:5, Insightful)
We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavorIf he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don’t think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name.
Translation:
I'd like to cash in on Arrington's hard work. Does he have some sort of puppeteer's slot in his ass or lower back where we could shove our arm during launches? Or is he run by remote control? Does he come with instructions or ... how does this 'Arrington thing' work exactly? Please toss him the offer of looking like Steve Jobs in the eyes of the public but being my subservient bitch behind the curtains and being forever financially crippled. If he requests vasaline, we may be able to find some funding somewhere but we're not making any promises. There are sharks and there are sheep ...
Honestly, I applaud Arrington's levelheaded response. I believe mine would have consisted of nothing more than "WTF?" and an image [27bslash6.com].
Aside from all that, I'm sad because I really was excited to see what came out of this and would have been interested after the price dropped a bit. I mean, depending on battery life, you'd have to be nuts to get a Kindle over this.
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On the other hand, let's see what Fusion Garage ships. Might be ok. Too bad Arrington gets cut out of the deal. You'd think a lawyer would have better smarts about these things.
Oh, wait....
Re:Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity (Score:4, Interesting)
The culture in most B-Schools is really kind of interesting and disgusting. My office is directly adjacent to my institution's business school and I'll sometimes have lunch in their cafeteria, because the food is decent. I suppose that when you're charging a quarter of a million for a degree you are somewhat required to provide edible food. It's hard not to notice that nearly every single student or faculty member there is a tool. I only wish I was making a generality.
Take the ugliest tendencies of a jock fraternity, add greed, avarice, hair-gel, flop-sweat and downright meanness.
Ever see the movie Glengarry Glen Ross? Think of the Alec Baldwin character. Now take away the charm and intelligence and give him the patina of higher education and the aroma of Axe body spray. That's the population of a business school.
I sometimes play in a floating poker game for academics. The only person we've ever had to physically put out was from the B-School. And get this: it was a asst prof from Romance Languages that executed the bum's rush. The ejectee went on to create a retail start-up that made some money, grew fast and went down hard. I've heard that some working stiffs got hurt in the deal, but the major players went on to give "make money at home" seminars and host an infomercial on local AM radio (the kind that try to sound like a real radio talk show). And this is a guy from one of the top-ten US biz schools.
By comparison, the folks over at the law school are sweethearts.
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Re:Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity (Score:5, Insightful)
The Kindle is actually $260 now, and it has an non-backlit eInk screen with a three-week battery-life. It has always-on, free 3G internet access, and it has accesses to the gigantic Amazon digital book store.
This thing might have been a cool (concept for a) gadget, but it is certainly not a replacement for the Kindle. The Kindle is aimed at (and is perfect for) people who like to read BOOKS.
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Meh. I'm holding out for a Nook [barnesandnoble.com]. More open, more features, same price.
My wife's is supposed to ship today. She placed her order within an hour of announcement and hopefully won't get hit by the 2010 bump.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I got notification from UPS a bit earlier today that they had a package for me. Since the only package I'm waiting on at the moment is a Nook, I think your wife will be getting hers. (I ordered a few days after the announcement.)
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mobi is a proprietary format (it is owned by a company, and they control the format), and Kindle's version isn't straight mobi, it's a slight modification. Txt and pdf aren't ebook formats. (They are text and e-paper formats, respectively. Yes, there is a difference.) And the Nook can use those as well.
epub is a true open format: available to any without licensing fees and such. Software is available freely to convert books and other text into it, and out of it should you so choose. (Provided they hav
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I'm not sure if your confusion stems from the fact that this is to complicated for you to understand, or that you don't want to understand.
First, the Kindle supports mobi. Regular, non-DRM mobi format. Your claim otherwise is factually, indisputably false.
Secondly, it's the number of books supported that matters. If a book is only available in a format the Nook can't read but the Kindle can, the fact that the Nook supports your favorite format doesn't count for shit.
So in conclusion: both the Kindle and the
mods on crack (Re:Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity) (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole thread has been modded Troll. I'm guessing the CEO of Fusion Garage somehow got mod points.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation: I'd like to cash in on Arrington's hard work.
I have no reason to doubt that Arrington is being screwed here, and that he does in fact have intellectual property rights that are being trampled on, but how much hard work did he actually do on this thing? My understanding is that he mostly said, "I want this thing with these specs at this price, make it happen" and his manufacturing partner is the one that actually built it.
Arrington is providing (a) his services as a sort of ideal end-user (i.e. if this one tech-savvy guy really, really wants a thing t
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...but how much hard work did he actually do on this thing?
Doesn't matter. The post clearly shows (if accurate) that Arrington owns a piece of the intellectual property that make up the CrunchPad. Its as if a bunch of different people got together to make a pizza chain with one guy coming up with the name, logo, mascot, and business plan, and the other guys deciding to ace that first guy out yet retaining all of that first guy's input. Its a blatant rip-off of Arrington, no matter how much work he did. If you own a piece, you own a piece. That fact isn't up for de
Re:Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't matter. The post clearly shows (if accurate) that Arrington owns a piece of the intellectual property that make up the CrunchPad.
So, patents are *good* today? It's tough to keep track...
Seriously, Arrington clearly bit off *far* more than he could chew. Any jackass can "invent" a tablet. "10 inch screen, wireless, touch input, long battery life, less than $300!" How hard is that? The hard part is actually designing, manufacturing, and bringing the product to market. Those things are *very* difficult. That's why all those great ideas everyone comes up with never happen.
Arrington's posts about the CrunchPad were *always* exaggerated and idealistic in tone. These are good signs that he was deluded and had a fantasy of grandeur. This was compounded by the slashdot-types who would *love* a CrunchPad.
Arrington clearly had the desire, the drive and the imagination, and even that's a lot. After all, he got a lot further than any of us would have. But he clearly didn't have what it takes to make the product real. If the product *really* was just "days away" from production, and if he *really* has done all the work people are attributing to him, he could just take his project to someone else. But he can't, because he really *didn't* do as much as he thought, and he really *wasn't* just days away from production.
Too bad, too. Because the CrunchPad sure did *sound* like a great *idea*.
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Re:Angst and Drama? Try Hilarity (Score:4, Informative)
I have no reason to doubt that Arrington is being screwed here, and that he does in fact have intellectual property rights that are being trampled on, but how much hard work did he actually do on this thing? My understanding is that he mostly said, "I want this thing with these specs at this price, make it happen" and his manufacturing partner is the one that actually built it.
Well, to Arrignton's credit he (or the TechCrunch side of things) did build the first prototype [techcrunch.com]. He also provided office space for Fusion Garage and no doubt was integral in the testing. There's also a lot of talk about setting up distribution and funding although it's hard to say how much of that was Arringtons doing. Overall I would say Arrington has contributed at least an equal share into the project.
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Who Is Doing What? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what Arrington is bringing to the party here. He's not an engineer that I know of, but more of a money guy. It seems like Fusion Garage was doing all of the heavy lifting on the project. It's not clear how much skin Arrington had in the game. If he was providing serious development capital, he has a point. If all he was providing was "vision" and bloviation and hype via his blog, with maybe a seriously minority share of the capital, then he should STFU. There must be some sort of written contract for a venture like this. Let's see what it says.
Personally, I don't feel that the branding of something with "Arrington", "Tech Crunch", or "Crunchpad" brings a lot to the table.
Re:Who Is Doing What? (Score:4, Informative)
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As much as I hate Arrington and the "CrunchPad" because better $300 Tablet PCs already exist [ebay.com], I would have to disagree with you on this. Manufacturing a device and getting it to market is one thing, but advertising it is the other side of the coin. Hell look at the pet rock, anyone could literally make a "pet" rock at home for free, yet the idea made the [wikipedia.org]
Hire a lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)
Airing your dirty laundry on your blog is a sure-fire way to alienate the very people with which you want to reach an agreement. You've no doubt made it harder to resolve your differences amicably, even if Fusion Garage were the ones being dicks.
Re:Hire a lawyer (Score:4, Insightful)
If, for whatever reason, he considers it highly unlikely that they'll be able to come to any agreement useful to him, it wouldn't be totally unexpected for him to attempt to pay the other guy back, and then some, in his own coin. Refuse to budge on any trademark/IP/whatever issues, indefinitely scuttling a release anywhere in the WIPO world, and use his considerable blog-fu to sink whatever is left.
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Re:Hire a lawyer (Score:4, Insightful)
I very much doubt that an amicable settlement is desired by either party.
FusionGarage's shareholders think they can use Michael Arrington's personal investment in the project as leverage to get more ownership of the product. This situation has apparently been unfolding out of the public eye for at least a couple of weeks, according to Arrington's post. They're playing hardball, and they figure that they can shove the terms of this new deal down Arrington's throat because he doesn't want the public embarrassment of not getting it done, and not wanting his baby to be stillborn. I'm sure that those shareholders have done this successfully with a lot of other wide eyed tech entrepreneurs. The shareholders probably believe that what is likely a minor investment in the grand scheme of things can be risked. If they lose it all because Arrington decides to call their bluff, they very well may not care.
Michael Arrington more likely than not went into this in a totally naive manner. I wouldn't doubt that there are a number of things he did wrong that enabled this situation. However, that doesn't change the fact that his partners are now attemtpting to blackmail him, probably legally. They have part ownership of the IP, that means they have a voice. However, Arrington has that same part ownership. He also, as the saying goes, buys ink by the gallon. He has decided that he's willing to shoot the hostage and eat the loss rather than see the people who betrayed his (naive) trust profit.
As he said, there's going to be lawsuits back and forth on this, and the place this will be resolved is in the court system, probably many years down the line.
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Lesson #1: Might Makes Right (Score:5, Interesting)
This is pretty run-of-the-mill back stabbing in OEM/ODM business.
1. The manufacturer sees an opportunity with a weak 'partner'
2. Screws the partner.
3. Profit!
The thing is 'Fusion Garage' would have screwed him even if they worked a geographic restrictions deal out. If there was any meaningful market acceptance, any number of bigger OEM's would have taken their lunch in ~24 months.
Sad it has to go like this, but this very common unless you are an HP/Apple/Dell. Typical chicken-egg capitalism problem.
And nothing of value was lost (Score:4, Funny)
The only reason anyone is talking about this is because of Arrington's relentless zeal for self-promotion. I never thought this thing was going to happen, and in regard to keeping Arrington's name in circulation, it was a smashing success. The only thing missing from this soap opera is that Google/Microsoft/Apple diabolically combined with SMERSH to stop the CrunchPud before it could lead to world peace.
Its called a shot-gun clause... (Score:4, Insightful)
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have a shot-gun clause [wikipedia.org] with a hard time limit in any significant partnership agreement. This "co-owned" 50/50 split stuff is BS and is way too likely to go sour.
If they had a shot-gun clause in their agreement, this would be a simple matter of one party or the other buying full rights and continuing on with the project, no legal system and multi-year drawn out court battles designed to put all the money in lawyers pockets. The issue would be resolved in a matter of days and both parties would essentially be happy.
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If they had a shot-gun clause in their agreement, this would be a simple matter of one party or the other buying full rights and continuing on with the project, no legal system and multi-year drawn out court battles designed to put all the money in lawyers pockets.
Only if both sides have roughly the same financial resources. Otherwise the poor guy can't possibly buy out the rich guy, so the rich guy has a huge advantage... I get the feeling, in this situation, the other guys have a lot more resources.
He can talk the talk (Score:4, Insightful)
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*The above sentence is to be completed at some point in the future, if and when it ever becomes applicable.*
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This guy is a dick and always has been; it's kinda nice to hear he's having trouble!
Nothing like a little Schadenfreude [wikipedia.org] to brighten one's day after all...
Arrington pulled a SourceForge (Score:5, Interesting)
Arrington pulled a SourceForge.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-web-tablet-help-us-build-it/ [techcrunch.com]
He declared a project, didn't put much in beyond the idea for the project, and then expected people to flock to the project and build it for him. Very much the same way people declare projects on SourceForge, and then expect volunteer programmers to come out of the woodwork and build whatever their pet project happens to be.
The only difference here is that it involved both hardware and software, and not just software.
I went to the Internet WayBack Machine and read all of the blogs from Fusion Garage (the actual site is currently down, probably intentionally), and it looks like all of the software was done by them, including the OS, and it looks (from Arrington's blogs) like a lot of the hardware was done by Intel.
I don't mean to discount the value of vision or publicity, but really, he intended to Open Source everything about the tablet when he declared the project, and I don't really see a lot of value being taken from him in that case, since he wouldn't be building hardware anyway. The only money would be in margin on the hardware if the software was all out there. A lot of people have posted similar specifications for what they'd like to see in a tablet computer, and the only difference between them and Arrington is Arrington has a lot of self-publicity and got a startup to bite on the bait to actually build the thing.
Arrington might have some arguments with regard to industrial design, but the prototype hardware was not built by him, and the software that made that hardware live and breathe was definitely not his.
I've worked at combo hardware/software startups, and I've worked at software-only startups (including my own), and universally, the hardware in the hardware/software startups was all about minimal COGS and industrial design (being at Apple now, that's pretty much all there is). The value-add over commodity hardware is that it isn't "cheapest vendor of the part of the day" (so the hardware is reliable and not crap because of constantly retooled assembly lines), and it's the software. When Apple builds a laptop, it doesn't build hardware, and it doesn't build software, it builds systems. The people who don't get that and churn out 1.5%-4% margin crap do so at their peril.
My reading of things is that Arrington is no Jonathan Ive, and he's no Steve Jobs when it comes to design of hardware or software.
Fusion Garage may have taken his idea and run with it.. and they want to cut him in on profits from something, the intrinsic value of which he intended to give away for no profit, but they don't seem to be ripping him off to do it, although they do seem to be leveraging as much as they can to get him to accept a minority role with regard to what he brings to the table (which, per the above, by my reckoning, isn't much; sorry, Arrington).
As more than one V.C. has told me in the past, the point is not the idea; there are millions of good ideas that go unfunded all the time (I'll point at SourceForge again, where "funding" equates to "provision of manpower necessary to complete a project"); what a V.C. funds is the ability to execute on a vision, no matter whose vision it is, and the team behind that ability to execute on the vision and bring a product to market. 1 in 10 entrepreneurs get funded; 1 in 10 of those fail in the first year. That's only a 1 in 100 chance of being around after a year.
Arrington's failure is no less spectacular than anyone else's in that 99 out of 100 failures, he's just made it more public by ranting about it.
Ironically, the idea may still not be a failure, merely a failure on his part to control the thing which was built on his (and a lot of other peoples similar) idea, if Fusion Garage or someone else simply continues on and executes on it.
Good luck in your future endeavors, but don't think that by declaring an idea publically that you've built or created anything.
-- Terry
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The "dealing with everybody's least favorite social primate" part, on the other hand...
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You're a moron. The article doesn't s
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Meh, just seems like classic moneygrubbing stupidity.
"We want more money from this otherwise you can't have it!" is a rallying cry too often seen in the world of music rights to TV show DVD releases. I mean, take WKRP. Instead of cutting a deal, the rates to relicence the music remained too high to include the original track. So the rightsholders end up losing money, the customers get a subpar product, and no one really wins.
Take the money and run; keep trying to win against the banker will just get you
Re:Unfortunate (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think it is just a new level of fanboyism, to proclaim perfection as being the combination of an OS you've never used or seen installed on hardware you've never used or seen.
I'm hodling out for FooOS on a FooPad running FooChip. Think of anything you might like to do, either with a computer or without. FooCombo can facilitate that.
Re:Unfortunate (Score:4, Funny)
So, wouldn't that be 'mastroturfing'? That is, interjecting into any conversation the particular Object of your fanboi-ism that you are fantasizing about?
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Re:Unfortunate (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? There are phones which run full Linux (N900, Android, ...), why an earth would someone want to have less powerful OS on a tablet?
The Nxxx Nokia's are much more than mere phones, they are full blown Linux hand helds that will let you do just about anything a Linux PC, netbook or laptop will do. Why anyone would limit themselves with any other operating system is beyond me. With Linux, there are no tethering issues, no restrictions, nada, none. I call that "smart".
If a phone will NOT allow you to run Linux, at least one of the many distros, well it just is NOT smart!
For many years Nokia has been ahead of everyone offering these Linux hand held smart devices. Nokia N770 was the first, than came the N800 (FM chip on board); then the N880 and now the N900! If any tablet or hand-held is more limiting than any of the Nokia Nxxx hand held smart devices, why on earth would you waste your money buying it!
Note: I am not saying that you must run Linux, only that you should be able too! Big difference when you have choices as any intelligent consumer would want to have, preferably at least three choices, as if you only have two choices, you have no choice!
For me its not a matter of the hardware, but the books themselves, either I can read them (open data formats ONLY) on a Linux computer or I can not. If I can not, I simply will not purchase them. Keep it Simple!
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here.
Re:Arrogant Power Play (Score:4, Funny)
For some reason, the link where Fusion Garage gives their side of the story is missing in my browser. Can you provide me with it?
For some reason, the clause in the Slashdot TOS that requires me to hear both sides of an argument before rendering my personal opinion is missing in my browser. Can you provide me with it?
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For some reason, the link where Fusion Garage gives their side of the story is missing in my browser. Can you provide me with it?
A tiny amount of digging would show that they have a blog. [fusiongarage.com]
In it, they state they are doing the software for it, and the entire vision of the product is from Arrington. There cannot be a product without a vision on what is needed. In patent law, the person that has the actual vision has rights to the patent, no matter how many people are involved in the technical aspects (i.e. building it).
My thoughts are that Arrington should hire a team to write the software to his specs, and get a product out the door.
Re:Arrogant Power Play (Score:4, Informative)
Nasty. Here's some of the text from my cache. There are links directly to techcrunch. I have the full, saved files including comments, if anyone is interested.
Techcrunch Tablet Prototype B
January 19th, 2009
Goto comments Leave a comment
There is an air of excitement permeating through Fusion Garage at the moment. Michael Arrington of Techcrunch just wrote an update on the Techcrunch Tablet Prototype B.
It's our software that is running on the tablet as demonstrated in the videos embedded in the article. We continue to work with Louis Monier on the feature set and the user experience. We are thrilled with this progress and would like to take the opportunity to thank Michael and Louis for giving us the opportunity to work with them on the Techcrunch Tablet.
Its early days yet but we are big believers of the Browser As An Operating System and the Techcrunch Tablet Initiative.
A nice way to begin 2009 here at FusionGarage !
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