Okay Geek Farm
the End of CrunchPad - TechCrunch kicked off the project
Brandon Davenport
Today is a very very upsetting day for the guys over at TechCrunch, and geeks everywhere. They were so excited, pumped and ready to release the CrunchPad, to the public, after 1.5 years. They were going to release it -- a week ago. The device was stable enough for a demo. It went hours without crashing. They could even let people play with the device themselves.
Month after month of collaboration, sweat and hard work, the entire project destroyed itself because of nothing more than greed, jealousy and backstabbing -- On November 17 the CEO of TechCrunch's partner on the project, Chandra Rathakrishnan, sent Arrington an email with the subject “no good news.” And it only gets worse from here.
The email went on. Bizarrely, TechCrunch was being notified that they were no longer involved with the project. Their project. Chandra said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without TechCrunch's involvement. This is not even the worst part.
Just to smush it in Arringtons face even more, Chandra decided to forward an email from one of the shareholders, which is completely disgusting.
We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavor… If he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don’t think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name.
And with that, the CrunchPad disappeared into pure vapor and the d**che bags at Fusion Garage not only lost a huge business deal, they just got themselves a new, lovely reputation of complete effing idiots.
Mostly though I’m just sad. I never envisioned the CrunchPad as a huge business. I just wanted a tablet computer that I could use to consume the Internet while sitting on a couch.
Mike Arrington
Read and weep -- TechCrunch on the CrunchPad
