CrunchPad Inc. Formed With 14 Employees In Singapore

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/07/06/story2.html?b=1246852800^1855381

by theforay • 17 years ago

47 25 17 years ago

planck• 17 years ago

I think Arrington is vastly overestimating the number of people who will actually buy a CrunchPad. It will cost more than $300, be too big to be portable, but too crippled (no keyboard, no OS, no file storage, etc.) to be anything more than a toy.

vaksel• 17 years ago

he has more than 3.2 million people subscribing to the techcrunch rss feed, so the actual number of people who read techcrunch is huge. And the crunchpad will profit from the network effect.

people said the same thing about ipod, iphone and other apple products, as long as you have a following, you can sell anything at any price

nir• 17 years ago

I doubt the kind of following Apple has - people spending thousands of dollars on its products, sticking with them even when their market share was marginal etc - is comparable to people regularly reading a blog.

So far, other "A list" web celebs ventures have shown that, after the initial hype, they succeed or fail based on their product's worth.

tvon• 17 years ago

You sound like a Verizon executive.

pcc• 17 years ago

I'm not saying this isn't so -- but reading this kind of statement always reminds me of the many entrepreneurs that do end up being successful despite everyone saying it would never work.

gommm• 17 years ago

I don't know it depends on the price point but if it's 300$ I'll probably buy it... Seems like a fun piece of hardware...

axod4• 17 years ago

Geeks who like buying fun hardware are a really really small market.

axod4• 17 years ago

It's sure to be as successful as seesmic.

acangiano• 17 years ago

Your remark fails to consider that most successful entrepreneurs experience failure in their lifetime. It's part of the game.

axod4• 17 years ago

Agreed, however, I think everyone could see instantly that seesmic was a dud. As most can see that the Crunchpad is a dud. IMHO the idea of the Crunchpad is something that has already been tried many many times before, with the net result that there simply isn't a large market for such devices.

andrewljohnson• 17 years ago

I doubt TechCrunch has the expertise to make this thing as good as say, the Kindle. I know people who work at Amazon, and that company has really good engineers. I can't imagine TechCrunch does.

Arrington is just a Jeff Bezos wannabe, but he's missing the point. He thinks hardware+media=money. But it needs to be good hardware!

dabeeeenster• 17 years ago

The Kindle is vastly more complex than the Crunchpad. EInk, DRM store, mobile network hardware, all sorts.

The crunchpad is basically a laptop without a keyboard, a touch screen and some custom Linux software. It's really not that complex. Most of it is just assembling components and writing some relatively straightforward software, unless I'm missing something?

Say what you like about him, but Arrington is doggedly going after this thing...

boundlessdreamz• 17 years ago

The hardware design is being outsourced to a company specializing in it. IMHO it has a better chance of being better designed than kindle. By the way, Amazon has good software engineers. I don't know if they even have hardware engineers on their payroll. So arrington and amazon are kind of on equal footing on talent [except for the money that can be pumped into development].

wallflower• 17 years ago

I have to applaud Michael Arrington for going out of his comfort zone and taking on a sizeable project that is not guaranteed to be successful but if fairly successful, will make a small impact on the tech industry, rather than just reporting on it (like he does now).

MaysonL• 17 years ago

I hope that it's successful enough that he can come out with a 2.0 with a PixelQi screen.

vitocorleone• 17 years ago

Apple buys parts in bulk so they can get huge discounts. if Arrington can't do the same, he won't profit from this.

alain94040• 17 years ago

Why is this comment downvotted so much? I happen to believe that it's the key to the question. People just don't realize the buying power of Apple.

If you can build the CrunchPad for $200, you'd have a huge success. If you build it for $500, it's dead on arrival. If it has the next gen CPU, it's a success. If it runs with last year low power CPU, it's dead.

Plus you need great software on top of course, but the hardware can kill you.

Keyframe• 17 years ago

light and thin touchscreen pdf reader / web browser with durable battery and wifi is something I always wanted - I like where this is going.

johnnybgoode• 17 years ago

The problem is price. The estimate keeps going up. I think it's over $300 now.

greyman• 17 years ago

Even if it is less than $300, how much less? I can have netbook for less than $400...

I like the idea of CrunchPad, but still for the future I am thinking about paying more and buy a netbook with touchscreen - then the only advantage of CrunchPad I can think of is a shorter boot time.

Still, all the best to CrunchPad!

srwh• 17 years ago

Really like the [obvious?] crunchpad product. I really expect a new generation of products cloning iPhones, Kindles because Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia are sleeping under its comfort zones. Cheers to ASUS too!

raheemm• 17 years ago

Here's some pics - http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/09/crunchtablet-hits-the-n...

Here's the original post from TC that got this started - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-w...

I wonder if they are still planning to keep the hardware design specs open-source - that would be pretty cool

Edit: here is a video demo - looks cool! http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/09/crunchtablet-hits-the-n...

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CrunchPad Inc. Formed With 14 Employees In Singapore

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