This is the fifth in a series of profiles that look at how the tech industry is working with the federal government.
"We joke about the Internet routing around bad government," venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson said when I asked him about launching and running companies that have to make nice with Uncle Sam.
Jurvetson, a managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, made his first big venture capital score by putting money into Hotmail. He also invested in Skype. Of these early investments, he said, "They fell outside the realm of regulatory friction."
But times have changed for Jurvetson. He's investing in electric cars (Tesla, Revo), space travel (SpaceX) and biotechnology (Synthetic Genomics). Learning to deal with government is now a job skill. "For groups like us who moved from pure IT to energy and clean tech, it's inevitable."
Steve Jurvetson of VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)Nonetheless, DFJ does not invest based on prevailing political winds. In fact, Jurvetson said, they have "trepidation" if a business they're considering depends in any way on government largesse such as consumer rebates or tax credits. So the company will look at solar power investments, for example, but the company has to look like it can make a go of it without the government's help.
Cases in point: DFJ's investments in solar energy companies SolarCity and Solar Junction are based on the companies' balance sheets working without government credits or rebates.
But when policies shift and money comes the way of its start-ups, "we don't scoff at it," said Jurvetson. DFJ doesn't make bets based purely on where today's dollars are flowing, but Jurvetson does note that a large-scale governmental balancing act seems to reinforce good businesses even when the economy overall takes a hit. "We might not have predicted the financial crisis," he said, "but as some sources of money dried up, the Obama dollars flowed, and filled in some of the cracks."
Other industrial investments are also turning out to be politically charged. The electric car company Tesla, in which DFJ invested, received $465 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy. The company has promised to locate its manufacturing plants in the U.S., which has turned out to be politically astute: The real political engagement comes at the state and local levels from municipalities that want the plants in their backyards. California, where Tesla is located, is letting the company acquire $320 million worth of manufacturing equipment without paying state sales taxes.
At Tesla, the decision to be an American company is an ongoing one. The company's vice president of business development, Diarmuid O'Connell, said, "Even beyond creating American jobs for American workers, the most compelling business reason for Tesla to build products in the USA is that doing so enables a tight feedback loop between manufacturing and R&D. When you have engineers who can talk directly to assemblers, you shrink product cycles and ensure continuous improvement of the product."
While Synthetic Genomics isn't in one the highly politicized areas of biology--it doesn't do stem-cell research--Jurvetson does think the hostility toward stem cell research under Bush has relaxed under Obama. That, he said, has had a tangible result at research universities. "And there's the symbolic respect of science that Obama brings," Jurvetson added. "If you're at the fringes of science, that makes a difference. In the past it wasn't clear if you wanted to go to the U.S. to do research. Now it's on a more even keel."
Not surprisingly, Jurvetson said he was "personally excited about Obama," and he and his family campaigned for him. Of the partners at DFJ, not all share Jurvetson's beliefs. Managing director Tim Draper leans libertarian, for example. Is that a business problem or merely fodder for water-cooler debate?
Neither, Jurvetson said with a straight face. The diversity of opinion is a strength, he argues. He betrays no conflict over working with a man whose political platform is at odds with his own.
It appears to reinforce his business belief that "diversity can be more important than ability" at a company. "A group of diverse thinkers can make better decisions than groupthink. In our firm, for example, Draper and [managing director John] Fisher are completely different in every way. But they found mutual respect. And when I came on I was the tie-breaker."
This week on the Roundtable: The biggest tech stories of 2009! With my boss, CNET Editor in Chief Scott Ard, and Buzz Out Loud host (and my co-conspirator on Real Deal) Tom Merritt.
Listen now: Download today's podcast
Subscribe with iTunes (audio)
Subscribe with iTunes (video)
Subscribe with RSS (audio)
Subscribe with RSS (video)
Reporters' Roundtable #14: Biggest tech stories of the year ... Read more
I am a willing subscriber to The Wall Street Journal's online edition. It's $100 a year, which is a lot for online content, especially considering that you can generally find a way to get for free. But I'm a professional writer, and times are hard for all of us. I consider it a professional courtesy to pay, even handsomely, for excellent work. What I won't do is pay for twice. Unfortunately, that's what the WSJ wants me to do:
I recently downloaded the iPhone app for the WSJ, and discovered that getting access to the stories that I'm paying for already on the Web was going to cost me another $52 a year. And that's the discounted rate for existing subscribers. iPhone and BlackBerry app access is $78 a year if you don't already have either a Web or print subscription. It's only if you subscribe to both the Web and print editions of the WSJ that you get iPhone app access for "free."
No, I don't think so.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)This is madness. I'm paying for online access to the stories. Why on earth should the publication charge me for it twice, or differently, just because I want to view that content, sometimes, on another connected device?
A Dow Jones spokesperson replied, "Each platform or device provides a different experience, and our model reflects that."
By this logic, I'm surprised the WSJ doesn't try to charge me an additional fee for reading stories on a second computer. At least a WSJ Web password can be used on any browser, including the browser on the iPhone.
But what if I want to read on yet another device, like an e-book? Actually, and sadly, Amazon's Kindle content delivery system seems to take a play from the Journal's book. If you're already a subscriber to the WSJ in any form, don't ask about the Kindle version of it. You don't want to know. The Kindle system is so divorced from its content producers that people who subscribe to electronic editions of one service, such as The New York Times' Electronic Edition at $175 a year, must pay again to get that same content delivered to their e-readers. In the case of the Times, that's another $167 a year. For the same stories, except stripped of color.
Granted, for most papers so far there are no corresponding non-Kindle payment plans. You only have to pay for USA Today if you want it on your Kindle ($144 a year), but it's still completely free over the Web; even the iPhone app gives you the content for nothing, save the crossword, which is a paid app.
Here's a better idea for Amazon, the Journal, and the Times: Set up a way for users to subscribe to a content service, and let them get that content electronically wherever they want. Kindle, iPhone, Web, whatever. It should be a right: if you have to pay for content, it should follow you around like a devoted puppy. (To be fair, let's let newspapers charge extra for actually delivering newspapers, since printing and distribution does incur non-trivial additional expenses.)
This idea is already working its way through the television industry. It's called TV Everywhere. In a nutshell, it says that if you pay for certain shows or networks via your cable bill, you should be able to watch what you're paying for online as well, even when you're not on the cable company's network.
Another emerging idea that augurs for this is the concept of the "digital locker." We can hope that Apple's purchase of Lala.com will mean that the music you purchase from iTunes, as well as the tunes you upload from CDs you own, will be stored by Apple for you, to be streamed when you want, to wherever you are, for as long as Apple stays in business.
That's the way to do it. Paying for content that's restricted to a platform is an analog anachronism that should die in the digital age. It's not fair nor sustainable, since delivery methods and platforms shift all the time. It is fair for content providers to charge for their work, but they should sell the content itself, not the media that holds it or the connections that transmit it.
Blippy is one of those ideas that at first sounds so hilariously misguided that you'd be forgiven to think it a joke: It's a service that hooks into your credit card so everything you buy gets broadcast to your friends. Eventually you'll even be able to Twitter your spending. Ack!
Fortunately, the real story is more nuanced, more interesting, and more intelligent than you might think if all you read is the knee-jerk Twitter posts from people like me.
Blippy co-founder Philip Kaplan shows how his Amazon purchases make conversation starters.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)I talked today to Blippy co-founder Philip Kaplan about the service. He admits, "When we launched it, we thought we were kind of crazy." But I do believe he is on to something, and it it has more to do with collecting your financial data than sharing it.
Blippy lets you hook credit and debit cards into the service, as well as accounts at online stores like Amazon, Zappos, and Apple's iTunes store. Eventually it may even connect to physical retail, like Safeway. Blippy's very useful trick, which the company is still working on refining, will be collecting your financial transaction data at a very granular level. It will tell you not just where you're spending money, but what products you're spending it on and--if you set up the privacy settings appropriately--who else is buying the same stuff as you. It will combine all your spending data into one big stream and let you compare your purchase data to that of other people, again at a granular level. Eventually you'll be able to see if you're paying more than other people for Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, I gather, and find deals on items you like or purchase regularly. Mint, by contrast, shows you comparative data by category and vendor, but not by item.
That's the vision, at any rate. Currently, in Blippy's very closed alpha test, it's a system for sharing transaction data. You give it a credit card account and other account info, and it will tell your Blippy friends what you're buying, and vice versa. For example, you can see what music and apps your friends are buying on iTunes, and then you can have a conversation about those purchases. There are privacy controls, of course, and you can "pause" Blippy's data collection if you want to buy a secret gift on Amazon. Or, as Kaplan says, if you want to buy something private on a credit card, don't use a card connected to Blippy.
It sounds like the last thing anyone with a sense of personal space would use, but Kaplan maintains that much of our commerce is not only not private, it's not even "important enough to tweet." Judging from the activity on Blippy, it can still be a decent conversation starter. And indeed, in a future release Blippy will be able to (optionally) update Twitter and Facebook when its users transact.
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams broadcasts his iTunes store activity to Blippy users.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Future privacy features in Blippy may include the capability to lock out certain vendors from credit card data collection, and possibly an approval step for transactions before they're made public. Already you can set up your account as either open or protected, meaning, as on Twitter, you can let anyone follow you or lock it down to just those you approve.
I'm intrigued by one of the tenets of Blippy: Kaplan is interested in what he calls "passive sharing" of information. With this service, you can "check in" with your friends when you buy something--like a coffee at your corner Starbucks. Your transaction is a location beacon (I'm not sure the credit card data is updated quickly enough, but that is the vision). "Nobody is taking advantage of the fact that I'm swiping my credit card everywhere," Kaplan told me. Twitter, Facebook, Fourquare, and Gowalla require a more active check-in. (Another location check-in service, Stalqer, has a neat trick for passive check-in.)
It's not likely that old-fashioned relics like me will use this service to share financial data, mind you, but I do find the concept of using a financial system as a Foursquare-like input tracker interesting. And I would like a system that does an even better job than Mint of tracking my spending and comparing it to others.
Kaplan says he's not working on the revenue strategy yet. The company was incubated at and funded by Charles River Ventures, where he was Entrepreneur-in-Residence until last week. Potential revenues may include an affiliate model that kicks some referral money back to users when their connected friends buy what they've bought, but Kaplan doesn't want to "pay people to use Blippy," so the idea would need refinement. Blippy may also get its own credit card deal; right now you have to connect an existing card to the system to use it.
Blippy is in a closed alpha test right now. You can sign up for an invitation on the site, and it will open up in stages over the next few months.
What's behind the Google Chrome OS, technologically and from a business perspective? This week on the Roundtable, I discuss the pending operating system with CNET writers Stephen Shankland (Deep Tech) and Gordon Haff (Pervasive Data Center).
Listen now: Download today's podcast
Subscribe with iTunes (audio)
Subscribe with iTunes (video)
Subscribe with RSS (audio)
Subscribe with RSS (video)
Reporters' Roundtable #13: Google Chrome OS ... Read more
How Facebook said good morning today.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)When logging in to Facebook Thursday, I, like millions of other people, got the directive to update my privacy settings to fit in to the new, "simplified," scheme.
But at their core, the Facebook privacy settings have not been simplified. Beyond the set-up page, Facebook's privacy controls are now more complex and more powerful. The new set-up page seems more designed to pry this privacy from you than give you access to the new, and excellent, controls that Facebook has put in place.
What gets me about the page is that it doesn't seem to be designed for the users of the service. I get the impression it's set up to get users to give Facebook more permission than they should, to put their private data in the public sphere.
It does this by organizing around its "recommended" privacy settings rather than by your previous settings, and by not giving you access to the fine-grained control that's under the hood.
Facebook's new simple privacy settings page wants you to make all your posts and photos visible to the whole Web by default.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)If you accept the tacit recommendations on the page, items that you likely used to keep restricted to just people in your network or to your extended network will be visible to everyone on the Web. Data that will be exposed includes your wall posts and photos. That's what Facebook recommends, and apparently wants. Likewise, your political and religious views, per Facebook recommendation, will now be shared with your entire extended network, which, if you're reasonably connected in the world, will easily include people with whom you'd rather not share this information.
I understand why Facebook is attempting to expand the permissions it collects from users to share their information. The more information that is open, the more interesting Facebook is to people trying to get in to the system or to expand their own networks. And the more people use Facebook to define their social circles, the more potentially monetizable data Facebook has, and the more valuable and competitive its database is, compared to other social systems.
Moreover, the more public Facebook users' updates are, the better Facebook can fend off Twitter, which has a social system that is by default open. On Twitter, unless users specify otherwise, anyone can follow them, and all updates are public. Facebook's social graph has been historically closed: Friending has to be mutual, and updates, so far, have been limited to just friends.
With the new defaults, Facebook becomes more searchable, more Twitter-like, and gets more traffic from search engines.
In return for asking for this openness, though, Facebook is giving users something new and valuable: The capability to control who can see each individual post with incredible specificity. I especially like the feature that lets a user put up a post that's open to their entire network (friends of friends) except for a specific person or people. It's a great feature for gossips, or for someone who wants to communicate with everyone they know--except their mother.
But I'd like to propose to Facebook that it re-work its new initial privacy page with one designed to help users, not Facebook's Google rankings. Here it is:
In this invented settings screen, Facebook keeps users' permissions at their current settings unless they're explicitly changed. The screen also gives users realistic privacy options for the main content types.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)By default, this maintains your current settings. It also gives you relevant, if simplified, options for each of the main content types. And, finally, it's not subtle about alerting you that "everyone," in Facebook parlance, means everyone on the whole Web.
Meanwhile, here's how to exercise full control over your Facebook privacy settings. First, blast past the new simple settings page. It doesn't matter what you put on it. Then go straight to the top menu, and under the Settings drop-down pick "Privacy Settings." From that screen you can select several privacy-related categories. The most important is the "Profile Information" page, which gives you very precise, fine-grained control over who can see what. This is the privacy screen you should spend time thinking about and working on. Skip the over-broad and poorly-designed new set-up screen that Facebook is now forcing on its users.
Local product search company Milo.com is upgrading its service with features made for holiday shopping procrastinators like me: If you're looking to buy a product in a given category, it will tell you what store near you has what in the category in stock. So you can drive down to the place and buy the thing you want right away.
Let's stipulate that the smart thing to do is to plan ahead and buy online, where prices are better, and you often can get free shipping, and you can skip the sales tax. Let's also understand that the world is full of people like me (procrastinators), people who don't like to wait for anything (impulse buyers), and, of course, the feelers, who need to touch a product before they buy it. Milo is for all of them and us.
Currently, Milo is a good tool for finding a specific product near you (for example, the Canon S90). The new feature, rolling out Wednesday, lets you search for a whole category (like "Netbooks") to see what's where. You can also now set price alerts, making it possible to know exactly when you should hop in your car to get the product you're looking for at the price you want.
New functionality on Milo.com lets you find nearby products in a given category.
(Credit: Milo)Milo competes with Google Products' just-launched feature that will also locate products near you. However, Milo CEO Jack Abraham took pains to point out to me that Google has not, to date, been successful with structured search, especially in commerce. The search giant's previous foray in retail, Froogle, misfired. Google Products is better, though.
Abraham's comment to me from an interview a few days before the Google Products announcement, that "Google and Microsoft will be extremely interested in acquiring this," still rings true. Google does need help in shopping services. Microsoft has also shown an interest in acquiring its way into consumer commerce, recently by buying services like the air fare prediction service, Farecast.
Abraham also pointed out that while Milo has deep, real-time inventory data from a number of large retail chains, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Nordstrom, and others, Google says it is testing the waters with Best Buy data. However, using the Google service reveals in-store data feeds from other chains as well.
In my testing of the two products, I had a better experience with Milo than Google when it came to in-stock information. But Google did a superior job finding products overall.
Google did a better job of deciphering my queries to find what I was looking for. It also found more stores that carried those products. However, Milo knew who actually had the products it found. When Google would tell me, "call for availability," Milo would actually tell me if products were in stock. In terms of utility, I'd rate the services about even.
Google Products knows where the product you're looking for is supposed to be, but not if it's actually there.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Milo's Abraham says he'd like to layer in data from smaller stores than just the big chains. The company may build a module for hooking into Quickbooks Point of Sales for that.
Milo can make money by tapping into in-store pickup programs (where the customer pays for the product online, and collects it from a local store). Abraham is also looking at a coupon program that would connect the experience of finding a product online to the act of picking it up in a retail store.
One feature I'd like to see: A mashup with traffic data that tells me not just which stores near me have the product I'm looking for, but which one is closest to me in terms of driving time.
Abraham told me Milo's traffic is growing extremely quickly, at 70 percent month over month, and that the company is taking the "beta" label off its service Wednesday as well. But while Milo has solid service and a start-up's nimbleness and focus, it also now has a scary new competitor. Milo's got to extend on its product quickly to keep it ahead of Google. "I always expected Google to do this eventually," Abraham told me after the Google Products announcement. "I just didn't expect it to come yesterday."
Related: Can we share a moment of silence for LicketyShip?
On Monday, the media-viewing app Boxee is going into a closed, private beta test. This app has been in private alpha testing for about a year and a half, and has won praise while generating some frustration among its test users. At first, for example, it was a great interface to the Hulu service, but Hulu made its content unavailable to Boxee users (there's a less-elegant workaround baked into the current product). AppleTV users who hacked the app into their system have also hit speed bumps--the app won't work on the newest updates of the AppleTV product.
Boxee soldiers on, gaining fans and adding content from other sources. I recently covered the Boxee version of Clicker, for example, which shows us how the Boxee platform might some day do a credible job of replacing users' TiVos or cable boxes.
The Boxee experience is improving, too. Monday's new beta has a completely redone interface that is far superior to the alpha's. The idea of the slide-out toolbar menus, an anachronistic throwback to Windows and Mac desktop operating systems, is thankfully gone, replaced by a more visible and consistent interface.
The app also gets new features. If you tell Boxee your Facebook and Twitter IDs, it will scan your friends' posts continuously, and tell you what they're talking about in a new "recommended" column on the Boxee home screen.
The home screen also shows your queue, which can include content that pops up based on shows you're subscribed to. It also has a "featured" column that Boxee can use to promote new content, included paid placements--a new revenue stream for the company.
Boxee can also now search the entire Netflix online inventory. Previously, you could view your online Netflix shows and see a smattering of new ones. Now you can see and stream everything, assuming you're a paying user.
There are also new content partners: The Escapist (which makes the Zero Punctuation video), and SuicideGirls. (I wasn't aware until I got the beta demo that Boxee supports adult content; the NSFW feeds don't appear until you disable the parental controls.)
The new Boxee begins to address my biggest gripe about the system, which is that it can be hard to find content from the multitudinous streams that feed into the platform. A new TV menu combines content from the user's hard drive as well as subscription and streaming sources, and it has a useful search feature. There's also an improved table of contents for shows. But Boxee still doesn't have a global search to find everything it can play, so in some cases you need to know which "application" (Boxee content stream) has a show you want to watch. Boxee VP Andrew Kippen did tell me it's an ongoing goal to improve the search process on the platform.
Kippen says the company recommends the Mac Mini as the best platform for the app at the moment. There are also OS X and Linux versions, and a Windows port, but it's for 32-bit installations only. The Linux port will be used in the dedicated Boxee hardware, details of which are being announced shortly. In the meantime, Roku has a somewhat competitive hardware-based product now shipping, and it has the additional benefit of offering access to a user's Amazon streaming-video account, which Boxee doesn't do.
Boxee is still closed to most new users. Everyone, even existing alpha users, has to sign up for the beta lottery to try it out. The beta will open to all around the Consumer Electronics Show time frame, in January.
New Boxee home screen
(Credit: Boxee)
The new show browser searches both locally stored and streamed content.
(Credit: Boxee)
A new control menu can pop up above any playing video.
(Credit: Boxee)
Chandra Rathakrishnan and his baby, the JooJoo.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)CNET snagged the first journalists' demo of the new JooJoo (formerly CrunchPad) Web slate on Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan's San Francisco media tour. Quick impressions: yeah, this is a really cool device. Everyone reading a tech site like CNET will want one. But will they pay the $499 going price for it? We don't think so.
The JooJoo Web slate is based around a 12.1-inch diagonal 720p capacitive touch screen. The specs include: 1366x768-pixel resolution, a built-in camera, mic, and speakers, one USB port, and a card slot. There's 4GB of cache memory. What's the processor? Rathakrishnan wouldn't say. He also won't say who makes the touch screen.
The hardware is slim and pleasing to hold. The screen is gorgeous, and huge, and the plastic back is gently curved. The unit is very slim, thinner than a MacBook Air. There are no buttons on the device, save the single power switch.
The JooJoo runs a proprietary Linux-based operating system whose only purpose is to run the device's browser, based on Webkit but again a custom job by the developer. The browser supports Flash and other standard HTML extensions, but it won't run non-Web apps. No Skype for you.
Also missing: a user-accessible file system and printer drivers. This is one focused device. It browses the Web. That's it.
But it looks like it will do that job quite well. While the demo we saw was running on unfinished code, we found the device a very attractive integrated experience. The hardware is sleek and simple, and a pleasure to hold, and the user interface on the browser is simple and clear, although we expect it will get a bit more cluttered as necessary functions are added in before ship.
Upon booting the device, which really does take only nine seconds, you get a big display of tiles: Your Web bookmarks. The WiFi-only device loads up pages reasonably quickly and you can scroll through pages by dragging your finger on the screen. A pinch out (or "zoom") gesture takes you back the home screen. From the home screen, pinching in shows you your open Web sites. Missing from the current pre-production code is a navigate back gesture (it will be a two-finger swipe), a bookmark gesture (which will be like turning down a page corner), and other functions, like closing a browser window and page zoom.
From the home screen you can use the on-screen keyboard to enter a Web address or a search term. Once you type something in, you can use it as a Web address or a Google text or video search term.
The JooJoo works best when held in your hands like a book, I think, although the on-screen keyboard ends up positioned poorly. You can easily hold the device with one hand, but then you can only tap out words with one finger. There will be an optional easel stand, and the JooJoo will support USB and Bluetooth keyboards.
The JooJoo is designed in part as a video viewing device, but unfortunately in the demo we got, the Wi-Fi network we were on wasn't robust enough to support the video Rathakrishnan wanted to display. The few seconds of video we saw before the system stopped to buffer looked great, but if users buy this device expecting to be able to watch HD video in their hotel rooms all the time, we recommend that they either reset their expectations or avoid hotels like San Francisco's St. Regis, which apparently doesn't give its guests sufficient bandwidth.
Rathakrishnan says he's done no market research to verify that there's consumer support for this product, although he does note that people in TechCrunch audience have been supportive of the product. Of course, that was back when Michael Arrington was throwing around the concept at a $200 or $300 price point. At $500 it's a very different market, and the cabal of TechCrunch fans is not representative of consumer demand.
Rathakrishnan did say he's talking to several potential partners about the device--media companies, for the most part. A subsidized model is a possibility, he said.
The JooJoo with its pint-size inspiration, the iPhone.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)The product will be hitting reviewers' hands this month, we're told, and will be shipping in eight to ten weeks.
Is the JooJoo a great device? Yes, it is. But at the $499 price point, we don't think it will be a success. It does less than a Netbook--it won't run productivity apps that aren't browser-based--and it's helpless when away from a Wi-Fi connection. It's a great computer for browsing the Web from the couch, but at its current price it's a luxury item, an indulgence. It's hard to justify its purchase in the way buyers can rationalize an iPhone or a Kindle. It's not a product we'd recommend to anyone who needs their computers for productivity. It's not a device for students, or workers, nor is it a good family room computer (the keyboard isn't good enough). You can get a capable laptop for $500 that does much more than the JooJoo.
If you have money to burn, though, go for it. It's pleasing to use and will be a great toy for your living room. At least until Apple figures out how to tackle this category.
Like so many other tech gadgets out there, in other words, many people will really want a JooJoo. But I doubt they will pay for it.
Previously: CrunchPad reborn as JooJoo.
Fusion Garage's Chandra Rathakrishnan shows off the JooJoo in a videoconference.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Monday morning, former TechCrunch partner Fusion Garage revealed details of its plans to release its Linux-based Web browsing tablet.
Known as the CrunchPad until TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington announced on his blog that Fusion Garage had removed his company from involvement the product, it was expected to be a touch-sensitive slate computer designed for browsing the Web. It was said to have no local storage aside from what was necessary to load and run the operating system. Arrington said he was hoping to bring the product to market for under $300, but did not expect it to be a big seller.
More recently, Arrington said litigation over the breakup was imminent.
Fusion Garage has been quiet about the public but one-sided airing of the two companies' disagreements until now.
In a Web videocast Monday, Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan laid out his position on the drama, and revealed plans for the release of the product.
Tasty hardware specs
Rathakrishnan said the product, now named JooJoo, will soon be available for preorder for $499, well above the sub-$300 price point that Arrington hoped to deliver the product at. Shipping will start in 8 to 10 weeks.
Regarding the high price, the Fusion Garage CEO said that "nothing worthwhile can be delivered," at the hoped-for $300 price, and pointed to other products, like the Kindle DX and the iPhone, as examples of products with lesser screens that cost more.
The JooJoo will have a 12.1-inch capacitive touch screen, limited local storage for caching data, Wi-Fi but no cellular connectivity, and will boot directly to the browser in nine seconds, Rathakrishnan said. It is said to have five hours of battery life and weigh under 2.5 pounds. It has no physical buttons other than the power switch, and looks quite sleek in black, its only color option. The operating system/browser hybrid, written by Fusion Garage, will be capable of displaying full HD video on the device.
Regarding the potentially competitive Chrome OS, Rathakrishnan said that while it's a "similar vision," the Netbook form factor (which Chrome OS is written for) is not ideal for the use cases he envisions. Furthermore, Chrome OS is a year from release; JooJoo is entering production now.
Ugly legal posturing
Rathakrishnan opened his press conference by saying that "The death of the product has been greatly exaggerated." He then spent several minutes refuting Arrington's claims of ownership over the intellectual property inside the JooJoo device.
"I'm not the person I've been portrayed as in the blogosphere," Rathakrishnan said in defense of himself, before attacking Arrington. "Anybody can write blog posts," he said. "There are dreamers and there are doers."
Rathakrishnan said that he and Arrington had agreed on a vision of the product early on, and that Arrington had said he would line up funding and other help to bring the product to market. The ultimate goal was for a TechCrunch subsidiary company, CrunchPad, to buy Fusion Garage. But the TechCrunch money never materialized, and Fusion Garage raised money on its own, built the product independently, and lined up manufacturing for the product.
It's "ludicrous," Rathakrishnan said, to think that TechCrunch owns any intellectual property in the JooJoo. Rathakrishnan said that there were never any legal agreements signed to that effect.
"We took all the risk and did all the work. Michael Arrington sat back," Rathakrishnan said.
Opinions differ on Rathakrishnan's position, of course. Arrington has laid out a compelling case of betrayal in his blog posts on the topic, and TechCrunch readers have, to date, supported Arrington's position that he is the injured party.
Ultimately, it's highly unlikely that the rancor between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage will make much difference in the success or failure of the product. Neither TechCrunch nor JooJoo is a popular consumer brand, and the market for this category of product is untested. What is more likely to trouble the product's success is that it's priced out of reach of most consumers, and functionally doesn't offer much more than a $300 Netbook, although arguably it performs many of the same functions with a lot more style.
We're getting a hands-on look at the JooJoo later Monday and will report on that in a separate post.
