
Fusion Garage's website goes dark - kposehn
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/17/fusion-garages-website-goes-dark-has-it-bit-the-dust/
======
nikcub
If you don't know, Fusion Garage is the company we were working with on the
Crunchpad:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunchpad>

they went off on their own, released the JooJoo and then the Grid10 tablet,
and then things ended in a way nobody expected.

There is still an ongoing lawsuit between Techcrunch and Fusion Garage (I have
no idea what happens to that now, a lot of money was spent on lawyers and the
trial was scheduled for next year)

They have taken fully paid-up pre-orders for the Grid10 tablet, so those
customers are out now (this is why Paypal doesn't allow pre-orders). I also
feel for some of the employees who were genuinely smart and good people.

~~~
kposehn
Interesting, thanks for commenting about it. If you don't mind, any thoughts
on the company or the product?

~~~
nikcub
I sniffed out that Fusion Garage were more talk than substance when I went to
Singapore to see them the first time. I wrote an email, which is now part of
the legal case, warning about it. The entire story is interesting and funny, I
will write it up at some point (not soon).

The product was ok, you can see the pictures of the last prototype we worked
on here:

[http://nikcub.appspot.com/posts/crunchpad-proof-
obviousness-...](http://nikcub.appspot.com/posts/crunchpad-proof-obviousness-
in-ipad-design)

It takes a long time to polish a hardware product to the point that it is
ready for mass market. FG rushed the product out, so it didn't surprise me
that it wasn't well received. But apparently there are a loyal group of
hobbyists who like the JooJoo

If the partnership persisted, we would have likely switched to an ARM based
board and chipset after the first batch of orders. The Intel Atom stuff didn't
live up to expectations. I think we could have built something really nice and
useful.

------
ChuckMcM
I've got a Touch Book [1] from AlwaysInnovating. Those guys are like energizer
bunnies somehow they keep on going. Given the way the whole TC/FG thing came
off and exploded I am not too surprised about them going dark. One of the
quotes Scott McNealy made at Sun has stuck with me over the years, he said
"Running a company is like running a gauntlet of windows that are slamming
shut. Trip just once, and the window can slam shut before you pass it." That
really resonated with me and Sun lived with the mindset that tripping was
death. The tablet market has had some early folks in it, but they have not
been able to use their small size to run faster than the big guys. And Apple
of course threw everyone a curve ball.

[1] <http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/index.htm>

~~~
sown
Looks neat. What's the battery life like? can I put a Clear dongle
(<http://www.clear.com/>) in it?

~~~
ChuckMcM
No reason why you couldn't that I can see. If you have Android or Linux
drivers for it (ARM). I found (find? since I still have it) pretty slow with
respect to UI actions and so its not something I could adopt as an everyday
tablet but the keyboard thing was pretty cool (and still is). However with the
keyboard attached its effectively an ARM based laptop.

------
prawn
"Update: We have a comment from Fusion Garage's PR agency: 'Unfortunately,
none of our efforts have resulted in any communication from the company to the
customers. Given all of this, we don't have any other choice but to cease
working with FG effective tomorrow.'"

~~~
prodigal_erik
I don't think I've ever seen public relations people burn a bridge like that.
They must be annoyed.

~~~
prawn
Bad for them to be seen to be involved with an out-of-control client. If
they're also unlikely to be paid, the bridge might not be worth a whole lot.

------
andrewfelix
Why did these guys bite off more than they could chew?

They had already differentiated themselves with some great hardware. The
modified Android OS seemed completely unnecessary.

Even big tablet manufactures like ASUS barely modify the standard Android OS.

~~~
forensic
Lots of companies die because of bad strategic decisions. These guys were
positioned to become millionaires or to make nothing and they made some bad
strategic calls and got the nothing.

Good example of a company with good tech, good timing, and a good idea that
fails because of business decisions. This is the kind of case where it seems a
Harvard MBA could have made all the difference.

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funkah
The whole thing was a sad farce from the start, really. I feel bad for the
people who were sincerely anticipating this device, hanging out on forums
about it and everything.

