The following defense against the public accusations by Roy Wood necessarily has to reveal some of his business methods. I never planned to publish this, it is absolutely depressing to deal with this issue. But Roy Wood has violently dragged this issue into the public and seeks to involve other people into his holy war, so what can I do, some clarification must be published.
I had invented and developed a computer as a hobby in my spare time, without the ambition to make any profit. I have given away prototypes to support development of operating systems and application software. I hoped that my development would be affordable for as many folks as possible. If it was software I could have given it away for free. But hardware must be produced, and I looked for someone to produce it. I will not explain here all the lengthy details how much effort and prefinancing it required until I could find any commitment from established QL traders in the production. I found only vague forms of interest, nothing I could count on, although I had written software to show that the hardware works, and several operating systems were under construction. Suddenly after Tony Tebby had already finished a running SMSQ/E, financed by me, at my own risk, and Tony Tebby expressed his enthusiasm for my development, I had the surprise to read in the public, that Qbranch and TF Services had made a decision towards Q40 production. My objective was a coordinated effort to cut costs by finding cheap sources. I estimated, that with quantity discounts for 50 boards, and someone who has access to larger parts distributors, DM 350 costs could be reached. I proposed 70% profit for the trader and DM 150 licensing fee for me, which gives a retail price of DM 745. The license fee was originally supposed to finance my development costs, but back then I already had expenses that could not be covered by this licence fee from 50 boards. I clearly stated that my fee would rise rapidly with higher retail prices because that means less produced units. As a trader, Roy Wood should know that my profit is not turnover (my fee), but turnover less expenses. My negotiating partners proposed a higher retail price of DM 1050 based on their higher expenses. We clearly stated that we do not agree about the retail price, but without my approval estimated price figures and release dates were already published. Efforts to cut costs were started, and I found cheaper CPU's. Suddenly, despite my cheaper figures, and without my prior knowledge, a purchase of a large number of expensive CPUs was made, that would cause a rise of the retails price beyond my worst apprehensions, without any advantage for the users. I was irritated and I saw more and more lack of coordination. Roy Wood complained, that my involvent in the production was causing long delays and there would be no more cutomers to sell to. Consequently, I let him do the production without my help. Under the contract with Roy Wood, my obligation was to supply assembly plan, partslist and PCB data. Roy Wood obtained permission to produce and sell the Q40, without a fixed retail price limit, and received protection against third party competition for some time. My final fee would reduce to DM 200, in case licensing payments were made in time for the first 25 boards (which did not happen). I never was responsible for the Qbranch Q40 production at all! Unfortunately, Roy Wood decided to sell the Q40 without paying my license fee, in breach of the contract he signed. I tolerated this for a long time with respect to his claimed personal problems. He also ordered components from me, which he processed and sold without paying me. Without any obligation, I supported Roy Wood much more than he deserved, mainly by personal emails to his supplier and his customers, with informations, advice, but also practical help, e.g. a working reference board. In my opinion, Roy Wood should have taken more care of his production, when his problems first occured and not many months later. In fact I asked him to let me help, but offers from me were ignored or required feedback was not given. My motivation for further help for Roy Wood decreased, after I suffered cheque fraud from him, and he complained about my attempts to search the faults on his boards, stating he had not asked me to do any work for him. Roy Wood was not just "a little late" in paying me. From 1999 to 2002, until now, payments were constantly missing. Roy Wood has not properly paid even one single invoice in all these years. Some were paid after more than two years, others are not paid until now. Also we are not talking about "small matters", but high levels of debts troughout years, with a maximum of more than DM 9000 plus my interest losses caused by his arrears. Because Roy Wood did not pay me, I had to delay the already started Q60 development for several years, causing further disadvantages for me and the QL world in general. Things got even worse. When I started to accept no further orders without advance payment, Roy Wood explicitely agreed to this and I was naive enough to trust him. I purchased components, paid my supplier and delivered. Unfortunately the cheque he used to "pay" me was dishonoured. I hoped this was only an accident as Roy Wood claimed. Three times Roy Wood paid me with dishonoured cheques, including at least one clear case of cheque fraud in July 2000. Roy Wood promised to send an exonerate document, which never arrived. Neither arrived replacement payment, nor did he use the multiple other possiblities to give me the money, so it was definitely not by accident. I had my bank investigating the problem with Roy Wood's cheque, the result was quite clear - the cheque was cancelled by his bank after consultation with Roy Wood. You may remember an email exchange in this list regarding this and compare with Roy Woods recent claims: Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 00:23:33 +0000 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Q Branch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [ql-users] YAFOQT (Yet another Future of QL thread) In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> We had agreed on small regular downpayments but Roy Wood did not pay the rates and he did repetedly threat not to pay anything at all. I offered to help Roy Wood out by purchasing goods in exchange for debth reduction but there were inacceptable delays and unexpected problems with these goods. In this hopeless situation, I decided to ask for legal assistance. This was a very painful decission for me. As I am not a lawyer and my knowledge of the british legal system was next to zero, everyone can imagine how "eager" I was to follow this path. I have tried every other thinkable alternative but with the obvious lack of cooperation from Roy Wood I had to seek legal help. I simply had to do something because I feared that my claims would fall under a statute of limitations. At this time I had claims of more than DM 6000 plus interest on arrears. The first solicitors letter was sent to Roy Wood. Roy Wood then again stated further untrue promises concerning payment in full, making a delayed part payment instead. After letters from my solicitor were not answered and I had offered Roy Wood one more generous solution without any positive result I gave my attorney the instruction to proceed as he considers appropriate. Roy Wood did not owe me only DM 1200; the email he probably refers to, was merely a generous complaisance from me to close the affair. In the further proceeding, I resigned on many of my costs and interest on arrears, and judgement was entered on my behalf. I am very sorry that Roy Wood was not successful with his business, looking back at this affair I have probably greatly overestimated Roy Woods intellectual capabilities when I thought he would be capable to handle the Q40 production. However I find it absolutely disgusting that he is now using his influence to damage my reputation and Q40/Q60 related projects. Oh well, where did all the friendliness in the QL world stay. I would have preferred not to publish my negative experiences but Roy Wood is apparently getting more and more impudent, spreading new slander and malicious gossip whenever he likes. Others might have insisted on criminal procedures upon cheque fraud, if they were in my position. I just hope not to be involved with Roy Wood and not to be victim of his public slander. This should be the very least I can expect. Peter
