project customer

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:08:08 -0400 "Jon 'maddog' Hall" <maddog at li.org> said:

yo maddog!!

btw - before i launch in... i'm biased towards maddog - he's always been a well
intentioned chap at a minimum, if not and experienced and seasoned veteran who
really cares about open - in my experience that has been open source. i'd trust
maddog with a LOT (ok - not my code... sorry maddog - i'm not letting you near
my pixel processing stuff! :)), but... when it comes to contacts, strategy,
industry, ideas, cheering openness on - and more, i'd have maddog in the mix.

so...

> Hello Christoph,
> 
> >Good luck. Maddog made a lot words about the Brasilian universitary  
> >which should continue the Openmoko project. Nothing happend.
> 
> As far as I know the University still stands ready and willing to help
> with the GTA02-core project as soon as that is ready to move forward.
> Professor Zuffo has not de-committed from that project as far as I can
> see.
> 
> As to going further than that, the University is still interested in
> working on an "Open Phone".  But as I have seen here over the past
> several days, there does not seem to be much agreement as to how to move
> that forward.
> 
> >From my viewpoint a bit of this comes from a tacit disagreement in the
> project as to what is "open", and even less of a plan as to how to

indeed. thats why i bring up "open enough". to me - schematics are irrelevant.
datasheets of course are very useful. to others they dont consider a phone open
without schematics and cad designs and so on. everyone is different. i'm even
willing to concede that u likely will never have open 3d unless you design your
own 3d unit. not at the embedded level. all the players are closed with no
signs of going open - unless you (maddog) can convince them? :) your only other
choices are to create your own "software 3d" via dsp's and other auxiliary
processors. even those are in short supply of being open.

> finance a project that requires real money.  Openmoko's financing always

that's the biggest issue. financing.

> seemed to be on a shoestring, and never (for example) included the money
> to fix problems.   Other companies might do a "recall" and fix the issue
> at the factory. I think it was by good luck that the different issues
> that happened with the phone were able to be fixed with "a capacitor
> here" and "a resistor there"..and people stepped up to the "bug fix
> parties"...but there are still a lot of people out there with unfixed
> phones.

indeed.

> >Also he cooperate with silly companys like Koolu, who bargain Openmoko
> >down to blood and damaged all the project.
> 
> Koolu had its faults, and I will not say it didn't, but after several
> days of you writing and lambasting everyone about everything (other than
> yourself, of course) I think blaming Koolu for "damaging all the
> project" is a bit harsh.

i'd call koolu misguided. to me they were just uninteresting. why a freerunner
when i can get a android g1 dev phone that was signficantly better hardware
(though by todays standards its totally shot and useless).

> I had a company in Brazil that was all set to license the designs from
> Openmoko and manufacture the phone in large quantities.  They had a good
> SMT line, channels to distribute the phone in Brazil, and from Brazil
> throughout Latin America, and we had a good business plan to market to
> the VARs that were mentioned in another email.  Even though the phone's
> components were a little dated, we felt we had a good market in people
> who had to change the OS to create the applications they wished to have
> for small and medium business.  An example of that can be seen here:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dVch2nSuBA
> 
> The licensing of the design would have generated money to create the
> next design.
> 
> Then we tried to find out where to buy the parts, and how many parts
> were still being manufactured, and for how long.  That was when we began
> to realize that the marketplace for Openmoko parts was very limited.  As
> several people on this list have mentioned, to create a market for cell
> phones that is profitable takes hundreds of thousands, or even millions,
> not tens of thousands.

this is the problem. components are not a problem - if you go and buy 10
million of each, the suppliers will be happy to talk to you and provide you
with those. for this you need to design very high-end to make those components
have longevity. and then you need the money to buy them all well in advance (ie
commit to at least large initial stock and regular shipments with payments on
time or in advance - if they don't know who you are - they won't trust you and
want money up front). so this means serious dough. and serious volume to make
the suppliers sit up and take notice .. and this all comes back to having mass
market appeal. :)

> By the time that the company in Brazil ramped up to produce the phone,
> did the manufacturing and certifications and testing that were
> necessary, and did the certifications, built the channel, did the
> advertising, they would probably run out of parts.  It would have been
> unprofitable for them.
> 
> In the end I recommended that the company not try to produce the
> Openmoko V7, even though I had spent a lot of time and money helping
> them evaluate the possibilities.
> 
> So from my viewpoint, if there was one thing that killed the Openmoko
> project, it was lack of a thorough, over-all, realistic business plan
> that showed how the project was going to be sustainable into the future.
> 
> And the lack of agreement among all of the people involved as to what
> the marketplace was for the phone.


-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com