Slashdot Mirror
Arrington's CrunchPad Dies
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."
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.
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.
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.
My work here is dung.
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....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
When you write "days from launch", do you mean that there are thousands of boxes of these things sitting in distribution centers, waiting to go to stores?
Or do you mean they were hoping the printer was going to deliver a new batch of "CrunchPad" decals in a few days, designed to fit over the "Dell" logo on the laptop they were going to use in upcoming demos?
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.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This whole thread has been modded Troll. I'm guessing the CEO of Fusion Garage somehow got mod points.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
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.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
To be fair, it sounds like the technological side of the job was fairly simple. Knock together some commodity parts, put on a coat of polish, all set.
The "dealing with everybody's least favorite social primate" part, on the other hand...
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have a shot-gun clause 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.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
He lampoons startups every day and finally tries something on his own and realizes it's harder said than done, what a surprise. This guy is a dick and always has been; it's kinda nice to hear he's having trouble!
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 the suitcase with $1 when you should've settled for the $17,000 offer.
FTA: It was about the thrill of building something with a team that had the same vision.
Obviously, Arrington assumed too much about his partner who, along with the partner's shareholders, had a different vision.
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*.
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.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Wasn't me, but could have been. I wouldn't be astroturfing, I'd be one of the many many engineers actually working on ARM processors. Are we not welcome here?
The CrunchPad was supposed to have open hardware & software, right?
It was almost finished and ready for release, right?
So where's the hardware design & source code? Or was all that "open" talk just BS meant to get support from the slashcrunch crowd?
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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