Update 12/11/09 - Original posting was 12/9 at 5:22 am.
CrunchPad files lawsuit against Fusion Garage, and Michael Arrington details their case against them.
The court documents are linked at that page.
CNet story, by Rafe Needleman, on JooJoo, a name that is said to mean "magic" and does sound too much like Voodoo.
Also, here's Engadget's story by Ross Miller and a direct link to their video (larger).
The unsavory story of Crunchpad was thought to be an ending (though my own take here was "Doesn't actually sound like The End to me but a last grasp for control."), but now we have the guy who forced Arrington out, days before the unveiling, apparently feeling that the world will accept his showing up with the item and a new label covering the "Crunchpad" name, demonstrated by himself in a hotel room, and pay him for it.
And it might have, in this world, had Fusion Garage's CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan not overpriced it at $499 for a unit that does only web browsing but can't use a printer or save files of interest and uses a virtual keyboard that is not functioning well at this late date.
To be fairer, here is his side of the story. There's little question though that Arrington's blog clout spurred the interest and certainly the direction of development. For one partner to push the other one out of the picture at delivery time, presumably because they had no written contracts, leaves a very bad taste. You have to trust the future of the company behind a product and especially the company itself. How easy will that be?
Here's a more positive take on the JooJoo, by Information Week's Marin Perez
Interesting, but not at $500... Too many questions, and limited functionality. If it had an e-book reader and could take apps of some sort, maybe, but for that price I can get a hell of a netbook or a low-end laptop. Not impressed at this point.
ReplyDeleteStephanie
Me too, Stephanie. Nice high definition larger screen, but it's just too limited! for $500.
ReplyDeleteI love my Samsung NC10 but this older netbook with non-glossy screen has gone up almost $70 since I bought it in October because it's so popular. Still fantastic.
Interesting that the JooJoo (what a horrible name) doesn't use cellu;ar wireless but only wifi though I guess it could be painfully slow with some cellular wireless connections.