Marcus, I don't know what the problem is but I think you need to take some time and think about some things.
Nothing good comes of a rushed release. This is a flagship product, it needs to be heavily refined and rock solid or the public won't keep interest. This is not designed to JUST be a developer product, it's meant to be a consumer phone, with GPS, a great screen, and a whole host of nifty and useful apps that will draw a large user base. Secondly it's a fully open platform that will easily woo both hobbyist and professional developers.
People buy phones all year round. And those that do so before their holidays will come back and make perfect mouth-to-mouth propaganda. And when November comes the others will base their buying decision on exactly that. It is perfect leverage at zero cost that you miss out.
Yes cell phones are bought all year round... but the majority of phones are bought in November -February range. Why's this you ask? Well between November and January prices get slashed to make way for models that get announced just before and at CES. Then from Jan to the end of February people clamor for those hot new models that their chique friends have just bought and are showing off.
I bet that in the christmas season 2008 (not this year) you will have plenty of phones with GPS and VGA screens. And plenty of big companies throwing big marketing dollars at it.
Exactly the reason to wait and make sure that you have a damn good product. Remember the first gen Razr? It was a very sexy and cool phone but many people shied away from it because of the numerous reports of it "being slow" and "freezing up." Note that the new Motorola phones are running their own Linux and that the interface and operation is significantly faster and smoother than the predecessors. So you don't like the way that management is doing this. You'd rather they rush a product out there just to get it out there first? I'm incredibly grateful that you don't have a say in the timeline because the Neo1973 would be doomed to failure if the launch were rushed. The timeline of the project is very well planned, it provides enough time to make big changes to the software and small changes to the hardware without compromising stability and security. This is a fantastic ability, it gives them a way to address unknown weak points in the hardware before the consumers ever get their hands on it. You have to think with a business oriented mind not one of a hot headed young developers mind. It's not about getting it out there, it's about making it the best.
> On the long term for nobody of us is it important to start in January, > or March That's not true. It is a waste of first mover advantage. Once Google comes out with a phone (unless they buy from FIC and use OpenMoko) the market gets really tight.
GOOGLE WILL NOT BE RELEASING A PHONE. (Sorry for the all caps but that really needs to be emphasized.)That's not their market strategy. Google will be streamlining their services for phones, my bet is that they'll be doing it though a browser, just like all their current services. I'm also going to bet that it will be compatible with the embedded Opera browser which the opera folks would be more than willing to port over. Google will not come out with a phone, they're a services company not a products company. Come on Marcus don't just blindly read Internet speculation and think that this project is doomed. Trust your superiors, trust the people who started and are in love with their project. They have an immense amount of passion and a great bit of business savvy that needs to be trusted and respected. Bryce Leo _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community