Outlook still murky for $150 Medison laptop
(Credit:
Computer Sweden)
Responding to cries that its $150 Linux laptop is at best vaporware or, worse, a scam, Medison held a press conference last week at a Stockholm Hilton where it answered some, but not all, questions posed to it by the Swedish press, including Computer Sweden. After reading accounts of the exchange, I have no better feeling on whether this operation is legitimate, fraudulent, or a misdirected publicity stunt.
The only useful piece of information to come out the press conference was the promise that the company would start shipping its Medison Celebrity laptops around August 15. I placed my order on July 25, so I'm giving the company until September 5 to deliver, which is the far end of its original four- to six-week estimate.
The company did have what looks like a working unit on display for all to see, but the company's managing director, Valdi Ivancic, didn't answer questions about who would be manufacturing the Medison Celebrity laptop, other than to say the company has an assembly plant in Brazil with plans for new plants in Central America and Europe. Impressive: expansion plans before the first Celebrity laptop rolls off the assembly line.
Ivancic explained that Medison plans to make more money from accessory makers advertising on its site than from sales of the $150 laptop itself. He said that shipping is not included in the price of the laptop, which is odd, since shipping charges weren't added or even estimated when I placed my order. Then again, my account has yet to be charged. Still, I'd like the chance to agree to the shipping charges before they're applied and the laptop ships. Support is also a question mark; Ivancic said he's talking with a company called InfoCare.
Now I'm no Scandinavian entrepreneur, but it would seem to be that one ought to figure out how to ship and support a product before you begin taking orders. Being able to share these details at a press conference of your own arranging would go a long way to assure the public that you are running a legitimate business. Instead, Ivancic's exchange with journalists lacked details, but did include this gem:
Journalist: Will you sink or swim with this?
Ivancic: No, we won't.
Before the press conference ended, Ivancic steered the proceedings into the realm of the bizarre by mentioning that he may run for prime minister. My $150 and I are hoping that it's hard to launch a successful campaign for prime minister of Sweden on the heels of an Internet laptop scam. If my Medison Celebrity shows up by September 5, Ivancic can count on my vote.
As it sits, you've got two distinct companies with two distinct URLs registered. Means a whole lot of nada.
their Medison Celebrity laptop.
Now the huge question is what Valdi will do with US$ 45 Million orders of a
product that seems to not even excist and all the bad publicity he gets from
it.
Valdi has also created a clothes collection promoting his own name:
http://www.medison.se/medisonshop/clothes.htm
Another interesting thing is that there seem to be two higher end models of
laptops called: Hollywood Celebrity and Star Celebrity.
Find them on the Flash site: http://medisoncelebrity.com/a4desk.swf
The .swf file was created by a demo version of A4Desk and in the best
MySpace style has some nice background music.
Another interesting page is this one promoting Valdi as prime minister
candidate of Sweden:
http://medison.se/val2006/indexex.html
What does these ideas have in common:
1. World's lowest priced laptop that seems to not exist.
2. Clothes collection with the name of a CEO on them.
3. Product titles involving terms like celebrity, star, Hollywood
4. Prime minister of Sweden.
Did someone say this is some sort of publicity stunt? I believe a jail sentence
is the likely outcome of all this, but please vote on him if you are Swedish and
he makes 300.000 customers happy with a US$ 150 laptop...
- I also await $150 laptop
- by olddogv September 1, 2007 1:25 PM PDT
- ordered mine, rec. confirmation 30 July. $150.hold placed on my Visa, which timed out & not renewed. 2CO.com responded promptly & assured that all was in order, and that funds would be safe untill I recieved AND APPROVED product. The website now mentions shipping charges, appearently they ship collect. I think DHL is likely. I got another 2 weeks to wait, & allow another 2 weeks due to unforseen circumstances. I will report when/if something happens.....
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(10 Comments)