Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Maybe they changed the screen not because it was better, but because they actually found (what they thought was going to be) a cheaper alternative with similar level performance, and figured saving some money would be worth taking the risk of a potentially extended delivery?

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

I'm still not sure now after reading the official statement of Jolla...
Will the people get their tablets or not?

And what will happen next?

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

This is What I think.

I think it depends on the December round with investors.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reports today quoting a Jolla spokesperson that Jolla has 12000 paid orders on Jolla tablet and only a handful of them has been delivered to the customers.

Crowdfunding covers 10000 orders and the rest were placed this autumn. Spokesperson claims that Jolla intended to deliver the tablets and that was the reason why new paid orders were accepted this autumn. However, there was a delay due to the change in the display and then the funding problem emerged.

The spokesperson says that Jolla still targets to deliver the tablets, but IMHO it is very unlikely they are going to get an investor seeing potential in Jolla's business.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Even if we get the tablets, without Jolla/SFOS updates or support, there is not much point in it.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

There are options for this, including opensourcing it as a whole ; which would be awesome. During the last community meeting these were proposed

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

https://twitter.com/fantas0s/status/668363622163357700

:mad:

• Sami Pienimäki - Missing - MOST WANTED - fraud and deceiving behavior - Still working for jolla?

• Jussi Hurmola - Free of all charges - left early in the game.

• Marc Dillon - Guilty - fraud and deceiving behavior - left the buildings backdoor - Chicken!

• Stefano Mosconi - Guilty - fraud and deceiving behavior - left the buildings backdoor - Chicken!

• Antti Saarnio - Guilty - fraud and deceiving behavior! But at least stay and fight to get the tablets out - holds the key to save face of him and his accomplices.

• Tomi Pienimäki - Still under investigation.

Yes, I'm judge, jury and executioner!

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

@Dave999 does this mean the tablets are already produced and waiting in a warehouse?

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

I doubt that.

Honestly. I have no clue and I don't trust jollas commutation either. It's like Bagdad Bob if you remember him.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Needs to be updated with more sailing/ship references ;)

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

I called my credit card company on Friday to try to dispute the charge to IndieGoGo.

"So you're looking to dispute a charge from a year and a day ago?"

Pretty sure that was futile, but I had to try.

As stated previously, closure. Now I will go to Micro Center to receive retail therapy.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Based on Jolla's communications thus far:
- Jolla is out of cash
- Tablets have not been ordered from the manufacturer as Jolla doesn't have cash to pay for them
- All the personnel will be temporarily laid off as Jolla doesn't have cash to pay their salaries

What is needed is funding from an investor. If finding an investor was difficult, it is even more difficult now as Jolla has filed for debt restructuring and ceasing its on-going operations.

If Jolla somehow manages to get an investor, the tablets can be ordered from the manufacturer, the lay-offs can be cancelled and operations resumed.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

They haven't said that. The exact quote from the press release: "Jolla will also temporarily lay off a big part of its personnel."

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

http://static3.businessinsider.com/i...-right-now.jpg

“There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a “burning platform,” and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times – his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a “burning platform” caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I’ve shared with you what I’ve heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I’m going to share what I’ve learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion – we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.

In 2008, Apple’s market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.

Let’s not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally – taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Jolla? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Jolla, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought Sailfish would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2015, we might have only one Sailfish product in the market.

At the midrange, we have Sailfish. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Sailfish is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.

At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Jolla employee said only partially in jest, “the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.” They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

And the truly perplexing aspect is that we’re not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we’ve lost market share, we’ve lost mind share and we’ve lost time.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody’s took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Jolla, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.

Consumer preference for Jolla declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Jolla to other brands. It’s also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.

How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?

This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Jolla. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally.

Jolla, our platform is burning.

We are working on a path forward — a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.

The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same."

Antti Saarnio - The fake one

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Translation of HS article in English:

Jolla has not been able to deliver pre-paid devices to customers - 12 000 tablets paid, deliveries on hold
Finance 21.11.2015 22:01 Updated: 22.11.2015 11:10

Jukka Perttu
Helsingin sanomat

Caption: Jolla's Marc Dillon presented the company's tablet in Slush in November 2014.

The software company Jolla which has announced on applying for corporate restructuring has not been able to deliver already customer paid tablets, or tablet computers, on the schedule. Now deliveries are completely on hold, says the communications director Juhani Lassila.

The company has received a ferocious amount of calls as the people who have paid for the device are asking, at what stage they are in the delivery queue.

Jolla has received orders and prepayments for 12 000 tablets, of which a small batch was delivered last month, says Lassila.

Corporate restructuring of Jolla was announced on Friday. The company plans to temporarily lay off a large part of its workforce.

The company gathered orders and advance payments, about a year ago and in February-March of this year, for a total of 10 000 devices. In these campaigns the upfront payments were collected by appying a crowdfunding principle, Lassila says. In addition, this fall Jolla took orders and advance payments for a few thousand tablets.

The company still accepted upfront payments in the autumn, because outlook was that it was possible to start deliveries in a larger extent, Lassila says.

However, according to him, the situation changed when it appeared that the supplier of displays for the devices had to be replaced due to technical reasons. In addition the availability of funding was delayed in November.

Lassila says the company's goal is still to continue the deliveries of the ordered and paid tablets. The delivery for the second batch of devices has been prepared, but the company is unable to provide a schedule for it.

The company is hoping that it would be able to arrange additional funding in December. Also Jolla has to be able to successfully agree on issues with an equipment manufacturer.

Jolla was founded four years ago. The company has been developing its own Sailfish OS operating system, which is based on Meego, used earlier by Nokia. Jolla is not an equipment manufacturer so its goal is to license Sailfish. In addition to the pre-sold tablet Jolla has sold smartphones using Sailfish.

According to the company it has many small and large customers who are interested in using Sailfish.

Jolla has told temporarily to lay off a large part of its workforce and that its money has run out.

Correction 22.11.2015 at 11.10: Displays were not replaced to be larger, but the manufacturer of the displays was changed to another one.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

I was one of the first 200 to pledge money over well over a year ago, I've received nothing. I was told to expect my tablet this month, it's now the 22nd and I have no word of shipping and nothing expected. I think that I will just have to eat the costs. I am not angry, I believe in what they were trying to do, but the phone was **** to be fair, although the tablet looked great a year ago, it looks heavy and a bit lacking now as it's been delayed so long. It's a pity, but unless MS can make a dent with the rumoured Surface Phone it's a duopoly from here on out.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

...and I was one of the last optimists who pay for imaginary tablet.
But, I'm angry, because that amount is almost half of My salary.
And I'm disappointed because SFOS is so good I cannot change for android.
And I'm angry again because I suggested Jolla phone to My friend to buy it.

:(

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

AFAIK half of the personnel is temporarily laid off. Negotiations have been with single investor for three months, but at the last minute it was delayed, thus they were unable to deliver the Tablets. Negotiations still go on, debt restructuring of course looks ugly but it's a means to protect the company for duration of time so they can close the funding round during December - if they can. Another thing is that they might need to change the way Sailfish OS is handled, as there is demand for it to be modified to several different purposes, but Jolla has been very protective about it to avoid fragmentation of the platform (Android suffered from severe fragmentation issues and it was sorted out more or less harshly if I remember it correctly...) but opening it up to modifications and different purposes IMO are essential for the vitality of the platform in the long run. This might be one thing they are discussing with the investor X.

However, if this investor X folds, Jolla will not be able to keep the talent to keep Sailfish OS in continued development and most likely they end up in bankruptcy. Someone else takes over the assets and our little community will pop some champagne for celebrating yet another failed attempt to challenge iOS/Android duopoly....

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Quote from Helsingin Sanomat:

Saarnion mukaan lomautuksen koskevat kaikkia yhtiön 70 työntekijää. Lomautus ei välttämättä toteudu kaikkien osalta, jos yhtiö onnistuu hankkimaan rahoituksen joulukuussa.

According to Saarnio, all the 70 employees will be affected by the temporary lay off. If funding can be arranged in December, the lay off will not necessarily affect all the employees.

Source: http://www.hs.fi/talous/a1447999381004

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Yeah, so there is noone left.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Aint gonna happen. We who invested small via Indigogo has lost our hopes.

Why would big investors believe in Jolla after all this mess lately?

Sorry but: Jolla era is over :(

One can only hope fairphone buys the SailfishOS

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

No, you have 18 months to lodge a dispute. Visa / Mastercard terms!

Go ahead and do it, I am. You can toute that the vendor talked about delivery delay's and then it is now obvious they will never deliver.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Thanks for the link. What he said is a little bit ambiguous but your interpretation is a valid one and it would mean that their plans changed between Thursday and Friday.

Some other possible interpretations:

1) It might be that all the people from the company are part of the "negotiations" (YT) of temporary lay-offs but in the first phase they might suspend the payments of wages for ~50%, and if the situation is later getting worse then more people without new negotations. Or

2) All the people from the company are part of temporary lay-offs but it is time limited and rotating, like everyone is temporarily laid off for two weeks but 50% for these calender weeks and the rest for other non-overlapping weeks.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

So what this would mean in practice is that they keep running, but at half manpower.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Previously they stated that key personnel will stay at work, but has it changed. Either way it doesn't really matter much ATM as closing the financing round is only thing that matters now...

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

The scary thing about the Jolla statement is that they specifically said that their immediate concern is to secure a further round of financing, then look at getting the tablet situation resolved. That to me says that if there's no financing - then no one is getting a tablet.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Well, yeah. The reason why the tablets are delayed at this point is because Jolla doesn't have enough money to buy them. If there's no financing, Jolla will never have enough money to buy them...

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Is that confirmed?

Surely Jolla simply didn't just take the money that was set aside for the hardware and just use it to cover day to day operations? I mean how otherwise can you satisfy existing orders when you have no new revenue?

I would have thought that the tablets themselves were ordered and paid for months ago.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Money was used to finance the development etc. It was not finalized product. At time I thought that the whole campaign was first and foremost a PR-stunt to get publicity but it worked as crowdfunding after all (in a sense that the money actually was used for development and not for just something extra...). Jolla has been dependent on external funding since from the beginning and profits from device sales (meaning, IF they made any profit from devices) have been marginal. Revenue comes from very different sources, ie. corporate customers, which have been slow to come aboard for various reasons. It's sad, but it's the reality how capital intensive startups work.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

:) Jolla is what is known as a "startup". As such, they've received what is essentially a loan from some investors in order to create a product that will, at some time in the future, hopefully be sold in order to derive an income. Therefore, as with most startups, Jolla is essentially deep in the hole financially until they manage to sell their product.

The Indiegogo project, in terms of money, was really tiny compared to Jolla's budget. It's true, they could have immediately spent the money on tablets way back at the beginning of the year, but they (1) still needed to port Sailfish to the tablet hardware, and (2) also decided to modify the original tablet design. Both these tasks take time and money, so it wasn't until just a few months ago that they were ready to start ordering the devices. I have to assume that by that point they were already under financial pressure, and no longer had enough to order the full set of tablets (which is probably the real reason they were going so slowly with these rounds of "waves").

So yeah, everything is kind of tied together here; the Indiegogo money can't have been enough to cover all the tablet hardware and software engineering done earlier in the year, and still pay for the parts and manufacturing now. So one way or another, the rest of the bill had to be paid by their financial backers, and they just don't have the money any more...

EDIT: And JulmaHerra states the problem more succinctly and clearly in the post above mine. :)

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

You omitted the "if" part.

It is called robbing Peter to pay Paul. I am not advocating it but sometimes it is inevitable when you find yourself in a really dip sheet. Jolla apparently believed that paying Paul was more urgent and that they would get some funds in time to pay Peter but they did not. I do not blame them for shuffling the money, but I do for the dishonesty. They've been pulling wool over our eyes for months.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

This is it in a nutshell. Money comes and goes, but when the lies come out, its game over.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

The problem is, in this case, I'm pretty sure Peter never had enough money in the first place; they'd still have had to go back to Patrick (i.e., their financier) to pay off both Peter's and Paul's debts. ;)

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Paul stole Peters Lastu case too

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Established companies have to balance their product prices to their cost of productions and other outgoings, but that's not how startups work. New companies lose money, because establishing revenue streams takes time. Startups require regular injections of capital to keep going during this time, until they eventually turn a profit. They depend and rely on these injections, and it's almost impossible for a startup to succeed without them.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alphabet_rounds.asp

It's completely correct for Jolla to plan their operations around this money coming in. A startup would never be expected to keep indigogo money in a piggie bank separate from everything else. If the backers lose interest, no more can be found and the investment stops coming in, then the business is over. The tablet pledge money is a drop in the ocean.

Also I think legally the tablet pledge money was a donation, for which you may receive a 'perk' which is not guaranteed. I think the only people with legal rights to a refund are the people who pre-ordered this summer.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

No need for a lastu case anymore :(

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

I was about to go off on a rant and say that couldn't possibly be right. But it turns out you are correct. There is no entitlement to any refunds on IndieGoGo.

http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms

So basically, if you ask for your money back, you'll get an IndieNoNo.

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

but why preorder backers could have money back ? because is not a crowd founding but really a preorder?

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Yes, they ordered something from a shop, and that's a contract to deliver or refund. Funding a kickstarter is a donation. Not that it matters anyway, because Jolla will get their next round of funding and everyone will get their tablets. If they don't, no-one will get any refunds because they will be bankrupt.

Don't give up people! We're meant to be doing it together!!

Re: The Future of Jolla's Tablet
 

Need for a Lastu case, of course not. I wonder what will happen to them all now? Jolla will be dragging Lastu's name down with them.