Death of CrunchPad
R.I.P. CrunchPad
Hi guys. I know, no exclamation point. It’s bad. The CrunchPad really is dead! How did this happen? Well, I won’t go into great detail, you can read Mike Arrington’s full post if you want the whole story. Basically, the manufacturing company that they had partnered with, Fusion Garage, contacted them three days before the official launch and told them that they were no longer involved with the project, and that they would be selling it without TechCrunch’s involvement. That is wrong on so many levels.
The CrunchPad, as many of you know, was born one and a half years ago, in a blog post by Mike Arrington. Since then, it has gained huge support, gone through 3 working prototypes, and was ready to be manufactured when this disaster took place. It was going to be a device born from the internet, and built for the people who created it. It was what we all wish for, a $300-ish dollar web tablet. And it died because of greed. All because the shareholders of Fusion Garage decided that they wanted more of the cut. Or maybe they should just go for all of it. And now they have nothing.
So Rest in Peace, CrunchPad, and hopefully we’ll meet again some day.
Billy