The End Of The CrunchPad : Michael Arrington, over at TechCrunch, has been working on an idea for a tablet device for quite a while – he called it the CrunchPad. He was hoping to unveil it in November. The prototype looked awesome.
However, after this email from the engineering firm helping Arrington put together the prototype, the entire project has fallen apart.
[…] the email went on. Bizarrely, we were being notified that we were no longer involved with the project. Our project. Chandra said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.
Err, what? This is the equivalent of Foxconn, who build the iPhone, notifiying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from Apple.
I have to say, bad move on the part of Fusion Garage. The hailstorm of lawsuits Arrington is going to rain down on them will destroy any chance of this product going to market. Were they so naive to think that someone like him would just say “Okay” and walk away from it?