Samstag, 4. September 2010
Dienstag, 22. Dezember 2009
Cherrypal und ein Blick zurück
etwas research und dann ein
update:
update:
PS: das nennt man wohl "Hinhaltetaktik" oder?
update2: (wird immer geiler :))
- Ray Says:
January 4th, 2010 at 9:38 pmUpdate
Today, many of us received this message:
In short – we all had to re-order with a new “promised” 10 day delivery.
Problem is this…less than 12 hours after re-ordering, “google checkout” (the new order-processing system) dumped Cherrypal as a merchant. The specific quote in the email was,
“Google Checkout no longer processes orders for this merchant. If you’d still like to make a purchase from Tristate Cherrypal, please contact this merchant directly or feel free to retry your order with another merchant.”
So, another refund, another delay, and another promise unmet.
I hate to say it, but I’ll dish out the extra $100 to buy a post-holiday netbook from a supplier that is at least remotely sincere and reliable.
I wish Max all of the best, but his business model is evaporating with his customer service.
Sonntag, 20. Dezember 2009
Cherrypal Africa: reality or just a fake?
Hi world,
http://cherrypal.com
http://twitter.com/cherrypal
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=cherrypal
Folgende features werden derzeit bei verschiedenen Quellen angegeben:
- Mini-Laptop
- 400 MHz processor
- features 256 MB RAM
- 2 GB NAND flash memory
- either Linux or Windows CE
- Display: 7-inch
- 800 x 600 pixels
- Aufmasse: Breite: 21,35 cm - Länge: 14,18 mm Höhe: 3,08 cm
- Gewicht: 1,2 KG (= 2.64 pounds)
- WLAN: 802.11b/g, wireless!!
- Kabel: 10/100 Ethernet
- 2x USB 1.1
- 1x USB 2.0 port
- 1x SD card slot
- ??: 1 x hard drive slot
- Keyboard: 86-key keyboard
- Trackpad: built-in touch panel"
- Lautsprecher: inklusive
- Mirco: inklusive
- Propcessordetail: XBurst "mysterious Chinese microprocessor" created by Ingenic Semiconductor. The chip, thought to be possibly based on an ARM core, last turned up in the 3K Razorbook 400, a UMPC that was announced in 1998
- 4 hour battery
"We buy access inventory and package it up; that's why we are able to offer such a low price," Seybold said. "In other words, we use XBurst and similar inexpensive processors in order to stay below the $100 mark, we reserve the right to make changes on the fly, that's why we didn't go into great detail on our site. There are a number of customers who will get a much more powerful system than advertised. Yes we take orders and we started shipping last week. Naturally our margin on the "Africa" is very thin but we are not losing money either."
Cherrypal erläutert hier am 19.12. sein concept näher. Abwertend möchte man die Fa. eine "Schrauberbude" nennen dürfen, man könnte es aber auch genau anders herum betrachten. Cherrypal sammelt die Brosamen der Elektronikindustrie ein und macht was daraus, wobei ein Minimalstandard festgelegt ist. Von wegen Support oder Garantie dürfte da einiges unter den Tisch fallen... aber für 69 EUR? Na ja. Einen Auszug davon blenden wir hier ein:
When most people in industrial countries talk about cars they talk about horsepower, torque, mostly technical details. If you need a car but can’t afford one all this technical “bragging ” details don’t matter anymore. All you want is a vehicle that drives you from point A to B, in the safest, most reliable, economically and hopefully environmentally most efficient way. What if there would be a car manufacturer with a diverse product line that also offers a very affordable car, say for $3,000 MSRP, and the only promise would be that you can drive safely from point A to B, no thrills, low fuel consumption, would you buy one?
If you are a high school or college student regardless of where you live in the world, having access to the Internet is even more important than owning a car. If you live in Africa or most other parts of the developing world the chances that you can afford a $900 laptop are very little. Is it impossible to build a $100 laptop? It’s not easy, but it is not impossible either, you will have to tackle the problem with a different approach though.
How did Cherrypal do it? It’s actually very simple. We know how to build inexpensive laptops to get access to the Internet, however, the problem in consumer electronics is that high demand for particular components drives prices up. Success is kind of counterproductive to keep prices low. That’s why we procure components for the Cherrypal Africa in a different way, we buy access inventory, overcapacity, out-of-fashion shells, shells with minor cosmetic flaws, discounted limited batches, and other high quality though discounted components and systems, package them up and sell them under the Cherrypal Africa brand. Bear with me. What this means is that 5 randomly selected people ordering a Cherrypal Africa on any given day theoretically might get 5 different systems, with different configurations. However, their “Africas” would have one particular thing in common, you can browse the Internet, actually pretty fast. Coming back to our car example, we drive you from A to B, safe and fast and efficient. In other words, what you buy for 99 bucks is Cherrypal’s promise that you will be able to browse the Internet. Give us the technical freedom to build laptops that get you from point A to B.
We soft-launched the Cherrypal Africa in November and started shipping early December. So far we got nothing but positive feedback from admittedly surprised customers. What we promised was a 7″ laptop, 400 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 2GM storage, and what we shipped were 10.2 inch, 1.6 GHz, 160 GB (new) laptops.
A mistake? No, we call it understatement by design.
The marketing gurus from our parent company, Tristate, encouraged us to think outside the box, utilize our engineering talent in the best possible way. What did we learn? A brand is a promise. The Cherrypal brand promise is that you get at least or more of what we promise. So when we promise that you get a laptop with a 400 MHz processor it doesn’t mean you actually get one. When we promise that you get Windows CE it doesn’t mean that you get one either. Most likely you get much more. What we post in our online catalog as product description are minimum technology characteristics. In other words we “meet or beat” the Cherrypal Open Store online catalog promise. Another promise, we don’t ship any systems with Windows Vista or Windows 7.
In order to avoid any confusion, do we use XBurst processors for the Africa, yes we do, do we use ARM processors, yes we do, do we use Intel processors, yes we do, we use any proven components as long as they are inexpensive, high quality, and meet or beat our promised online product specifications, and last but not least, allow us to manufacture low energy consuming systems.
We have created a new product category for the laptop market, a product category that guarantees a particular functionality rather than technical specifications. When you buy a toaster you don’t care about what components are inside, as long as the toaster works; almost like our imaginary car manufacturer example that promises to deliver a car that drives you from A to B. The Cherrypal Africa promise is to deliver a small-screen system that enables you to browse the Internet, for 99 bucks plus shipping. That’s our promise, that’s the Cherrypal brand promise.
Coming back to supply and demand. If you can afford $290 more buy the Bing (13.3″ Intel N280 Windows XP) for US$ 389 and leave the Cherrypal Africa to those who can’t. Remember, the Bing is the thing. it’s my favorite laptop in the world!
Last but not least, the Cherrypal Africa is neither a marketing hoax nor competition to the “One Laptop Per Child” initiative, our campaigns are very complimentary. We are proud to report that we received purchase orders from over 150 countries in the last 4 days, from some countries we didn’t even know they exist. Thousands of emails from new customers and supporters confirmed the need for the Cherrypal Africa. We are thankful for your support and grateful for the opportunity to making green computing available to everyone.
So, what’s next. Our goal for 2010 is to make our Green Maraschino Linux flavor, combined with seamlessly integrated free cloud based applications, mainstream. It will be fun, a lot of work, and will reduce the cost of laptops even further.
Happy Holidays, Max Seybold, Chairman, max@cherrypal.com
info-links:
- PCMAG
- PCWORLD
- gearlog
- arstechnica
- techreport (plug PCs)
- olpcnews (hat nichts mit OLPC zu tun)
Samstag, 31. Januar 2009
Wenn Afrika erwacht, ist Europa verloren!
Hi world,
Telekommunikativ überspringen die afrikanischen Länder die Festnetzphase Europas ganz einfach. Denn: in nahezu jeder Hütte gibt es "Handies". Wenigstens eines. Vorgestern habe ich beispielsweise eine SMS nach Arusha (am Mt. Kilimanjaro) von D aus ins tansanische Netz geschickt. Kostenpunkt: 3,5 cent. 4 Sekunden hat´s gedauert und die SMS ist dort angekommen. In keinster Art und Weise zerstückelt, wie manche vielleicht annehmen wollen. Nein! Definitiv nicht! Meine Partnerin hat sie mir nämlich vorgelesen... Nichts war verhackstückt. - Übrigens während eines glasklaren Telefonats via Voice-on-IP. Noch Fragen?
December 31st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Hi, I thought I’d leave a note here in case anyone’s looking for updates. I have spoken three times with Max Seybold, who has been very pleasant and apologetic about the glitches hindering the distribution of the first batch of orders. Here goes:
1. The phone line keeps breaking — and was out entirely for the first week of the Africa launch — but when it’s working, Max picks up the phone right away and ready to help out. He’s really nice, but there’s nothing he can actually do to fix the issues with the shipping because …
2. The distributor in Hong Kong bundled all the orders into one huge shipment without authorization to do so, so there was only one tracking number for all the laptops together as they made their way to Alaska. (This is why your order has never been updated from “Pending” status.)
3. Once in Alaska, the units shipped out individually — with tracking numbers — but the list of tracking numbers is fairly useless to Cherrypal, because they don’t know which order number belongs to which package. Max seemed reasonably confident that the shipment was “on time,” which I’m inclined to disagree with only because of the New Year’s Day holiday and Sunday (no mail). That’ll slow things up a bit. But from my conversation with him, it seems reasonable to expect packages to arrive next week.