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News Jolla Oy offers 'closure' to tablet backers

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 29 Jan 2016.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Gareth Halfacree, 29 Jan 2016
    #1
  2. greigaitken

    greigaitken Minimodder

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    I wonder what the Jolla company salary structure looks like.....
     
    greigaitken, 29 Jan 2016
    #2
  3. jb0

    jb0 Minimodder

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    What, someone that raised money on Indiegogo is actually offering refunds for promises they couldn't keep?
    I always thought Indiegogo was just where fraudsters went because Kickstarter's (appallingly minimal) anti-fraud mechanisms were too strict.
     
    jb0, 30 Jan 2016
    #3
  4. mi1ez

    mi1ez Modder

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    Exactly what I was thinking...
     
    mi1ez, 31 Jan 2016
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  5. mi1ez

    mi1ez Modder

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    Surely once you have the OS and tooling in place, rattling off further tablets costs a fraction of the first ones?
     
    mi1ez, 31 Jan 2016
    #5
  6. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    not until you hit a certain number of units would the cost to make be reduced. They would of been paying alot for the specs they offered. Similar reason why first release Oculus Rift is very expensive.
     
    rollo, 31 Jan 2016
    #6
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    You can literally buy the Jolla Tablet hardware right now from Taobao for £100. Which, of course, means so could Jolla. Jolla, incidentally, charged its customers £188.73 for said Jolla Tablet hardware.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 31 Jan 2016
    #7
  8. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Scam? its what it looked like to alot of people.
     
    rollo, 31 Jan 2016
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  9. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    Is anyone surprised when a crowd funded hardware projects fail? Creating a new tablet like this is crazy expensive, and any delay seriously eating into your cash reserves as you're still paying people, services, office space etc.

    They can't just buy up the hardware for cheap as that would mean not paying themselves, and I don't think that sort of things happens with this sort of crowd funding project.

    Next!
     
    Guinevere, 1 Feb 2016
    #9
  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Well, now, this is what confuses me. The software side - which is where they claim the bulk of the crowd-funded cash went - is clearly done, 'cos there are already 121 Sailfish OS Jolla Tablets out there and will, if Jolla Oy is to be believed, another 540 of 'em in the coming weeks. So, all Jolla Oy needs is hardware (plus time to flash the OS on top, of course.)

    Taobao vendors *have* hardware, and are currently selling 'em at below Jolla Oy's price - and that's for individual units, you could negotiate a hefty discount for bulk purchases. Jolla Oy doesn't need to build anything, just buy the existing stock and flash Sailfish OS on top.

    So, given the above, why is Jolla Oy refunding people? Instead of spending £100 or less (plus time flashing the OS, as above) per person to fulfil pledges and pre-orders, it's instead spending £190 per person giving everyone (half of everyone, or half of their) refunds.

    That's the bit I don't understand. I feel like there's something we're missing, here.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 1 Feb 2016
    #10
  11. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    I doubt it will play out like that.

    I read that as meaning that at best people will get half a full refund. Which is probably cheaper for the company (and more predictable) than buying some Chinese hardware which, let's face it, is probably underpowered tat and could be different from that they promised to ship.

    If 'they' don't have the hardware tech/skills/people & time to flash and possibly adjust sailfish then half a refund will easily be the cheapest option for them.

    Wait and see if everyone gets half a refund at all. The way these things usually go is they underestimate the costs of setting up a refund scheme and burn through the allocated funds before they get it completed.
     
    Guinevere, 1 Feb 2016
    #11
  12. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    No, they're literally the same hardware. Like, one-for-one identical. What Taobao sellers are stocking is the hardware Jolla Oy contracted a Chinese company to make for Indiegogo fulfilment. There is no difference in specification, performance, or build quality: only in the software shipped in ROM. It's never been fully explained by Jolla Oy, but there are two trains of thought as to how this happened: one is that Jolla Oy was ripped off by the Chinese contractor, which took the design and churned out thousands to sell as Android tablets; the other is that Jolla Oy ran out of cash (which it did) before paying its Chinese contractor (unconfirmed), which offloaded the tablets it had already built onto other customers to turn into Android tablets in order to recoup its expenses.

    But at what cost to PR? If they don't have the hardware tech/skills/people & time to flash (no adjustment required, for reasons explained above) then where are the 540 tablets they're shipping this month coming from?
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 1 Feb 2016
    #12
  13. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    As i was bored and do like a good tech mystery I've been doing some sleuthing. :)

    Going on the minutes of a meeting (3.f) apparently the sales on Taobao had nothing to do with Jolla, their production partner had stock and stated selling them.

    EDIT: Also reading that around 200 out of the initial run of around 500 were sold in this way leaving Jolla with around 300.
     
    Last edited: 1 Feb 2016
    Corky42, 1 Feb 2016
    #13
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