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Pebble's next step

blog.getpebble.com

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Re: Pebble's next step

#251

Post by this-dang-guy »

headgasket wrote: post #190
asmithmd1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? It seems very strange they are basically just shutting down. That has to be an ego driven decision on the FitBit side - they wanted to kill Pebble. Are they even going to use the brand name? The combination of: working production facility, users in t…

Yeah seen that pattern before with the treo and handspring. That gang (palm clueless mgmt) even killed BeOS with the same stone.

Wow, I remember the Treo. That was a device long on promise, short on delivery.

I actually can't think too much about that era without being angry about how all of that sector played out. Frivolous lawsuits, bad management, amazing hardware, flashes of brilliant software.

And hope. So much hope.

Re: Pebble's next step

#252

Post by dom96 »

Many people seem to be calling for the release of Pebble OS source code. Of course that is unlikely to happen. So how about instead we reimplement it under a FOSS license?

Ever since I heard the rumours about this acquisition, I started wondering just how difficult that would be to do. I'm sure there are plenty of you here with experience in these types of things, is this a good idea or a waste of time?

Re: Pebble's next step

#253

Post by mattmaroon »

lettergram wrote: post #224
mattmaroon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they even have a few hundred thousand customers. Their first one kicked in the neighborhood of 50k supporters. Did they even ship the second? A hardware company on the hook for fulfilling 50k orders of the sequel has some pretty serious expenses. A sale might have been the best landing and what got everyone a refund for the 2nd.

Their pebble app has 500,000+ downloads on the Google store, and they have 2 million in pebble sales (I believe that's delivered). They've shipped their second Kickstarter last year (Pebble Time Steal).

Ah. I guess they probably sold plenty of units through other channels.

Still, they might need an incredibly high number of people to pay. And then people would bitch and say that they're running a ponzi scheme like a bitcoin wallet that lost all of its deposits. My guess is they've engineered a soft landing for orders they can't fulfill and employees and it's the best option in a bad situation. I'd commend them for doing that rather than taking the easy route.

Re: Pebble's next step

#254

Post by kobeya »

this-dang-guy wrote: post #179
neonnoodle wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else is on your tech fail shelf? I'm curious...

I have an Ouya, an OnLive, a cuecat, a SuperDisk LS-120, Commodore Plus 4, PS Vita (maybe a little early to call, but...), a DivX, a DreamCast, a Jornada, a Palm Tungsten, a GameBoy Advance e-card reader, probably some other stuff in there too. Shelf is a euphemism, it's actually a small pile of boxes that I keep just to remind myself that even great ideas will die with poor implementation, planning, DRM, or bad supp…

Want a crunchpad? Or whatever they renamed it to. I have no use for the thing.

Re: Pebble's next step

#255

Post by this-dang-guy »

yunolisten wrote: post #128
syshum wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I have to say I'm really disappointed and this is a huge blow to people that invest in startups offering hardware. Buyers need to start demanding Open Source Software and Open Hardware... With out that, you will always be screwed

>>Buyers need to start demanding Open Source Software and Open Hardware... Exactly

Point me to an F/OSS and Open Hardware version and I'm there. Seriously, I'm always backing those sorts of devices over proprietary ones every chance I get - though it's rare as heck.

Re: Pebble's next step

#256

Post by this-dang-guy »

kobeya wrote: post #254
this-dang-guy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an Ouya, an OnLive, a cuecat, a SuperDisk LS-120, Commodore Plus 4, PS Vita (maybe a little early to call, but...), a DivX, a DreamCast, a Jornada, a Palm Tungsten, a GameBoy Advance e-card reader, probably some other stuff in there too. Shelf is a euphemism, it's actually a small pile of boxes that I keep just to remind myself that even great ideas will die with poor implementation, planning, DRM, or bad supp…

Want a crunchpad? Or whatever they renamed it to. I have no use for the thing.

Wow, I didn't know they ever shipped those things.

No thanks, my stack is big enough, but I betcha someone collects those!

Re: Pebble's next step

#257

Post by kobeya »

fit2rule wrote: post #240
asmithmd1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? It seems very strange they are basically just shutting down. That has to be an ego driven decision on the FitBit side - they wanted to kill Pebble. Are they even going to use the brand name? The combination of: working production facility, users in t…

>This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? Actually, I think what happened is that Eric, the CEO, is now a multi-millionaire. So, this is more of a success story than most of us might consider savory to think about.

? As founder he held common stock, which would be worthless now.

Re: Pebble's next step

#258

Post by JonFish85 »

fit2rule wrote: post #240
asmithmd1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? It seems very strange they are basically just shutting down. That has to be an ego driven decision on the FitBit side - they wanted to kill Pebble. Are they even going to use the brand name? The combination of: working production facility, users in t…

>This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? Actually, I think what happened is that Eric, the CEO, is now a multi-millionaire. So, this is more of a success story than most of us might consider savory to think about.

> So, this is more of a success story than most of us might consider savory to think about.

In general this sort of thing is probably far more common than you'd think (top brass gets paid, everyone else gets a "thank you"). If I'm not mistaken, that's what happened at Sam Altman's company, and a good number of the YC company exits.

Re: Pebble's next step

#259

Post by iblaine »

I'm not sure how to react to this news. I have 3 pebble watches and 2 of them are broken. If fitbit can fix the pebble quality problem then I may buy more.

Re: Pebble's next step

#260

Post by kobeya »

dom96 wrote: post #252

Many people seem to be calling for the release of Pebble OS source code. Of course that is unlikely to happen. So how about instead we reimplement it under a FOSS license? Ever since I heard the rumours about this acquisition, I started wondering just how difficult that would be to do. I'm sure there are plenty of you here with experience in these types of things, is this a good idea or a waste of time?

Good idea. Get on it.
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