Joojoo is dead | Hacker News Reader

Joojoo is dead

e27.sg

40 pointse27sg33 comments

The whole tech industry saw this coming a mile away. I wonder if they now regret their decision to release it themselves, i think they would've done well with TC behind them.

I also think Fusion Garage will have a very hard time finding people to work with them in the future.

With hindsight this would have been a flop even with TC's backing. In a way TC have got away without a failed product to their name. I think TC assumed that Apple would be launching that iPad at $1000, and that they could then shift the JooJoo for $500 easily. Wrong - Apple's pricing approach has changed.

I think viable metric would be to see how android tablets will do on the market (by well established companies) and lessen that by a certain percentage (at least 40% - pulled that out of my ass).

I seem to remember Arrington wanting to release at a price point of about $200 or less. The price didn't go up to $500 until after FG broke with TC, I believe.

At $200, it would have been an interesting competitor, but I don't think they had a viable product at that price.

The words "barge pole" and "wouldn't touch" come to mind and I didn't follow the saga apart from a quick skim over some summaries.

Well according to the story they raised another $5M so some people obviously aren't staying away.

Some people are obviously idiots. With the reputation they have of being bad business partners and no success to date, any money invested is at best a black hole.

It's interesting that they seem to believe that they need to have iPad-like apps in order to compete in the consumer market. I certainly like my apps. However, I also can't see how "native" apps could ever hope to compete against RESTful Web services of the future when the browser supports rich "native" functionality.

It sometimes feels like that I'm the only person in the tech world who feels this way. Am I being naive? Are "silo-ed" apps and app stores the only viable future?

Perhaps - in that article it read to me like that was being as a bit of an excuse to move to android (of course it makes sense for many reasons). It certainly sounds better than "we stuffed up - going to android" - sell the upside !

When TC was still involved we were looking at Chromium OS - which wasn't ready, and also Android. If we stayed with the project there was a good chance that it would have been Android at launch (with support for Marketplace and all the other good things that come with Android)

It the standard tech question of what's best for the consumer vs what people think will make them rich. You have to wait for all those people to fail to become rich before they go back to delivering what the consumer actually wants and/or needs.

A preliminary hearing in August, however, struck out most of TechCrunch’s claims

That's not my recollection of it? [1]

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1695843

TechCrunch has made a credible showing that it may be able to establish the existence of a joint venture under which Fusion Garage owed it certain fiduciary duties.

Depends on what other claims TC made, probably some claims with malice and intent in the wording which the judge decided there wasn't any/enough evidence to proceed with.

I think what worries me most about the Joojoo is how Chandra puts a positive spin on everything that happens. iPad came out? Oh that's okay, we think the cloud will work (not a convincing argument). Oh so little sales? Not to worry - we have higher adoption in Europe (doesn't matter in the long run). We're shutting down Joojoo (but don't worry - we've got more VC funding, learnt from our mistakes, and are going to release a whole new stack of Android-based devices!)

While I think Chandra is a nice guy, I'm beginning to question his ability to see things as it is. He's done two startups now, both with near zero traction.

A constant positive spin on everything, an inability to see or create unique value propositions (they are one product cycle behind their competitors - two if you're talking about the iPad) and you've got one hell of a sticky situation.

I support the Singaporean startup scene, I do. But I'm beginning to worry at what this says about us.

The decision made by Fusion Garage seems like a good one, based on where the market is going now. The company has clearly shown they can get a product built. To me, the question is whether they can shake off the stench from the mess with TechCrunch such that future marketing efforts for new products will not be pointless upon arrival.

Can the tech crowd be won over?

I'm really curious about the family of products to be released. The line that the products would talk to each other in a unique way is intriguing. It is the synergy between the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes products that is a really strong point for Apple. I wonder whether anyone has tried replicating that with Android-based systems, and done so successfully.

I don't know if they've proven much of anything. End of life in what? 6 months? The iPad and most Android tablets will likely have updates for a few years into the future.

That's a big stinking fish if you don't even factor in the TC controversy. Anyone who bought a Joojoo is kicking themselves right now.

Straw poll: Has anybody here on HN...

a) Ordered a JooJoo?

b) Paid for a JooJoo?

c) Received a JooJoo?

I've never seen one, nor heard of anyone who even considered buying one.

I would have bought one from TC if it had been the original product that they touted, even the second version that was $100 more IIRC but nicer styled.

Without going into the whole debacle, it seems to me at least that together with TechCrunch, they managed to build a product. Just that when it came close to launch, they royally messed things up (or whatever, let's let the courts decide).

But somewhere there is a team that can build a touch screen tablet. Whether they can build a compelling offering that competes with the rest with their plans for an Android tablet, remains to be seen.

I do agree though, it seems like they are leaving, according to them, not unsubstantial number of customers in the lurch. Let's see whether they continue to provide decent support to existing Joojoo customers.

Although, having said that, no noise from customers for lack of support, could be there are no customers to make noise. :-)

We knew that Fusion Garage did the software, but did they do the hardware?

Remember that they had an ODM partner in Pegatron. Also with regards to the software, it's not like they garner positive reviews.

That's a good question. I do concede it is rather murky how much of the existing team was responsible and how much help they got from partners like TechCrunch and Pegatron.

Hardware board design was done by Pegatron along with some contractors both in the USA and Taiwan. FG took all that IP and re-created it (or possibly just ripped it - they had the boards and most ODMs can scan them and RE the schematics) with their new ODM.

Pegatron did a lot of IP work as they were sold on the TC involvement and the deals we had in the pipeline. They had very good engineering guys that worked with a guy we had in the USA.

The industrial design was done by a firm in Singapore

Software design and components were done by a variety of people. FG bought in contractors who did some drivers, and they had 2 FG guys who did the browser and UI

It was all thrown together very quickly and the team was only really scaled up in the months leading up to FG leaving us (TC). Lots of mistakes were made on the software side, but that is a whole other story.

(Note: I worked on the project while at TC)

Seems like FG was only doing systems integration and project management. Didn't see any IP that they came up with. They bascially outsource everything.

TC might as well partner up with any Taiwanese ODM. The Taiwanese ODMs are strong in engineering and manufacturing.

It's a pity just because of the 12" capacitive tablet format...there are no shipping competitors with that size yet.

Of interest, JooJoo users have been hacking away and have figured out how to install Android, Windows, and OS X on it. I think that's what JooJoo should have done all along -- sell it as a reference platform.

I wouldn't buy it because of the cloud that hangs over the company, but the hardware looks nice.

Don't count them out. Let's see how version 2.0 does on Android. They've shown they can build something with a very lean team...

Is it on Android, or on an "Android-based operating system" as mentioned in the article?

The VCs must be a very optimistic bunch. Fusion Garage is 2 product cycle behind Ipad, one product cycle behind the current Android tablet entrant.

I don't see the Android tablets competing with the Ipad yet (the UX experience just isn't there). However, once Android tablets pricing drops to $350 in another 2 product cycles, sales will take off as people buy Android tablet in lieu of netbooks.

As long as people are not looking at Android tablet as netbook replacement, Android tablet would continue to be a niche product.

VC's have nothing to do with optimism, and everything to do with who you are. If you're an "insider", chances are you'll get funded even if your product is absolute crap. If you're an unknown entity, good luck getting funded even if you have a killer product.

The most interesting quote from the article was probably "Chandra said transportation companies, hospitals and advertising agencies were interested in a customized version of the Joojoo." If that is in fact true and they can meet that demand, then I imagine there is a lucrative niche for them in low volume, highly customized tablets. You don't have to have mass market appeal and mass market sales to be successful company.

He's talking about a market, and possible luke warm interest in people's he's spoken too. It's basically marketing.

It's going to be easier to get a iPad programmer than a Joojoo programmer so it's unlikely many places will get behind a company that EOL'd their product in less than a year's time.

It's going to be easier to get a iPad programmer than a Joojoo programmer

Think hardware rather than software. If you're some obscure industry and need a small number of tablets that fulfill some obscure hardware requirements do you really think Apple is going to help you? Their best bet at this point is probably to take a good look at companies like Psion. Leave the mass market behind I focus on niche hardware for niche markets. There is still a very good chance that they will fail, but it is probably the only realistic chance they have.

The Joojoo is basically a Linux stack with Webkit on top of it. Either way, getting programmers would not be difficult.

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