A further update on preorders (18th of November 2012)

[craigix]

Craig I think we need some concrete answer now please. Your miscommunication and then blaming of ED is not on. You've got time to make videos about the iCP 2 yet you don't have time to inform your current Pandora preorders of what the situation is. I don't think it's right for me to have to write a pressing email to Jacquelyn where I know she isn't necessarily the one who can answer my questions even.


I just want to know when will I receive my refund please? (a few months ago now, I upgraded to the 1Ghz unit, forking out the same amount of money as my original order. Then this whole mess happened again, and that's not even funny. Some of it beyond your control yes, but there's no excuse for not communicating. Frankly, you've given me no reason to trust you.)

I cannot reply to you because Ed ignores my emails (or fobs me away with promises) and PMs on a regular basis, as has been doing so for months on end.


I won't get in to arguments or discussion on any of this on here. In general you should encourage people to buy a new Pandora from Ed the best way you can if you hope for this to ever be a success.

Craig, I appreciate your response.


However, you haven't answered my question. I have no reason to not trust EvilDragon, as he is delivering on his plan.

The problem is that he isn't. Ask him where the 800 units he promised me are.


He will no doubt tell you he has not been able to get enough sales to send me them.


Then ask him why he refuses and disrupts my attempts to help him get those sales.


My hands are tied. I cannot send you what Ed does not send me.


As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for.


And if he has not been able to sell enough units... we're back asking why he does not seem to be


interested in my help.


That's the loop and I'm not posting it again. I have absolutely zero control over events here or with


Pandora production/shipping, that has been made clear to me.


The tragic thing is I know I could have sold hundreds of units this month...


If you wish to petition OP Ltd for bankruptcy then that is your right, but it won't get you your Pandora.


There is nothing more for me to say, this argument serves no positive purpose. I really dislike that I'm having to do this at all but I just wanted to post something...

 

[overgauss]

I can't just write off the ~£600 odd I've given you. Why are you telling me to order from EvilDragon now, or "cross-upgrade" now? -- that's too late, you've already used the money and left me in another situation of limbo.

I do not for one second believe that Michael is ducking your calls, or not working with you for a plan. Maybe you can "sell pretty much anything." but so far you've only delivered harm to me.

I'm not the guy, but let me offer my perspective. Craigix is telling you that the most efficient way for you to get your money back is to encourage people to buy from ED. So for everyone to be happy we need to generate sales. Craigix has mentioned more than once that there have been communication issues, so believe what you wish. I pretty much disagree with you, but prefer not to get into a holy battle, dragging either OPT founder in the mud in doing so.


I have no right to ask you to be patient while hopefully the community tries to help fix the problem. Especially since there is no evidence that the community can, or will actively organize to try to adress these issues. Taking legal action would make matters far worse for all concerned, and I can understand why you might choose to do so. I won't even ask you not to. However instead of taking legal action first, perhaps the community can devise a means to address your needs as well as people like myself in similar situations (I need a refund on two units).


The ramifications of Craigix being manouvered into going down in flames are far more reaching and pervasive than I think any of us imagine. The community is divided, while the problem is easily fixed by a unified, motivated and cohesive group. Everyone want's to get on the open source design bandwagon, yet few want to get on the open source "fix the open source project" bandwagon.

 

[Naynay]

As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for.


And if he has not been able to sell enough units... we're back asking why he does not seem to be


interested in my help.

Perhaps it's time that you forget about asking for EDs permission to help him, and to start helping him anyway by pointing your sales skills at his store that has Pandoras on hand. That seems to make sense to me.


...and where's my 1Ghz Pandora from the initial 150-unit-run upgrades? I'm not getting it this year, am I?

 

[craigix]

I do want to make it clear that when I agreed to Ed's plan I did not envision things going like this, I was actually really amazed by how much work he put in to turning things around and getting production moved and going again. It was an astonishing achievement.


It did seem like things could be solved, but Ed seems to have allowed certain people to misguide him about how the Pandora should be presented and sold.


It is a shame as I think this month is probably the last month it can realistically be saved via a large volume of sales. Maybe January could also see some action, but I can't see sales being easy to make from early 2013.

 

[craigix]

As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for.


And if he has not been able to sell enough units... we're back asking why he does not seem to be


interested in my help.

Perhaps it's time that you forget about asking for EDs permission to help him, and to start helping him anyway by pointing your sales skills at his store that has Pandoras on hand. That seems to make sense to me.

Unfortunately I have tried to become involved there and have been asking for a small number of things for endless months, essentially professional video from the Pandora which Ed has the equipment to make. He promised me this several times, even told me he had made the video at one point, but eventually just told me if I wanted it I should do it myself.


That's how a lot of our conversations go.


I even went as far as to make a *whole new website* to appeal to new users (including paying for it to be built) - from what I've been told certain people told Ed not to use it and he didn't.


You can only do so many things before you realise you're not wanted.


I also put up with a lot of messages telling me to essentially sod off and leave the Pandora project to Ed, some of these people are well known on these forums and have misguided Ed on to, in my opinion, a dangerous path which won't help sales at all.


I'd love to wake up to find the video waiting for me in my inbox, Ed telling certain people to clear off and to stop listening to them and for us to present the new website and push forward with an amazing Christmas Pandora campaign, but I only realistically expect hate mail and arguments (I probably won't reply to them as I've got to work for the rest of the week full time).

 

[Timstertoo]

Craig, why don't you give ED an exact list of your queues and let him deal with it? It seems to be what you both want and would relieve a crapload of pressure from you.

 

[darkborn]

Ed seems to have allowed certain people to misguide him about how the Pandora should be presented and sold.

[some of these people are well known on these forums and have misguided Ed on to, in my opinion, a dangerous path which won't help sales at all.

And who misguide you? Tyler Durden? Please, get some rest.

 

[notaz]

Ed ignores my emails (or fobs me away with promises) and PMs on a regular basis, as has been doing so for months on end.

You have written some pretty heavy accusations here, if you trash talk ED you'd better have some good arguments and facts to back that up.

I will say simply that my attempts to save the Pandora have been ignored, sidelined and prevented for the last 6 months.

These vague claims lack substance.


If that 1GHz push is what you are talking about, I'd say it has been a total disaster as it killed sales of normal units, at the time you announced 1GHz, 1GHz production was far from ready to go. And now you wonder where are your free units.


If you have the new site in mind, it doesn't even look finished to me.


Can add more facts please?

This month should have been wall to wall advertising and promotion, the new website should have been online, magazine articles, huge PR campaign like we did for the iCP2... but .... nothing. I've tried and tried to get involved in helping with that because if there is one thing I can do well it's sell pretty much anything.

I don't disagree with that, but I don't really get what is really keeping you from doing that stuff..

Then ask him why he refuses and disrupts my attempts to help him get those sales.


My hands are tied. I cannot send you what Ed does not send me.

I say this is bullshit. You seem to be pretty upset about that half-finished site of yours, ED did not put it up, so what? Why couldn't you get it up yourself under openpandora.co.uk or whatever and get your sales and media thing going? You can easily get units from ED for production costs, supply is not an issue. He said he can even do drop-shipping for you, so sell units, transfer procution costs and keep the profits for yourself, let ED do the shipping.


ED is extremely busy with production, repairs, dayjob, million of other things, I only had chance to talk to him a few times over the whole months. Blaming him for things you could have done yourself is pretty pathetic, you just said you are so good at selling, your videos are fun to watch, so do it, not wait for him to do everything and put a nicely wrapped video into your mailbox.

 

[palstyo]

But Craig


Don't forget what did you done.


Who make this situation.


How many people still couldn't get 1GHz til now like me?


You have to think of bit before you post.


Okay maybe you are good for sales.


So why don't you do that before we know this happen?

 

[hedwards]

But Craig


Don't forget what did you done.


Who make this situation.


How many people still couldn't get 1GHz til now like me?


You have to think of bit before you post.

What makes you think he isn't thinking? I don't have any inside information, but the fact is that ultimately, CC caused most of this mess. It's been confirmed mulitple times that they failed to meet the bare minimum requirements on things like the oxidation issue.


I don't really know what's going on internally, but I was personally surprised that Craig's customers weren't receiving units in proportion to the open orders after that cash infusion via the investment plan. I may well have misunderstood it, and ED did explain it a bit when I asked a few months ago. But, the whole situation is confusing and I get the sense that there's some sort of major communications failure going on internally.

 

[darkborn]

ED shows us estimates of preorders left. Thanks for that.


Let's say we got 500 preorders left. No big deal, 1300 more sales will do it away.


However, this is only step1.


Step 2: How many Pandora is sold (for sure) until now? I bet there are many thousands... and here we go again:


MISSING OF THIS INFORMATION IS THE WORST ENEMY OF THE PROJECT RIGHT NOW.


Please, elaborate as well as you did before... we all missing it. Craigix, you're welcome (but do some rest first).


THIS IS THE NUMBER WE SHOULD BE PROUD OF, THIS IS THE BEST PR FACT FOR PANDORA PROJECT.


But valid numbers please, of course. You can say "more then xxx" etc if it is business secret or "can't guarantee exact numbers".


Step 3: Compare those numbers!


Number above (~500) is nothing against thousands of happy users.


This is the best way to regain confidence and to stimulate ppl to donate/upgrade.


Btw drop-shipping is way to go imho. It should be put on voting, Craigix owes us that - to listen what community wants.

Well you can reduce Craig's pre-order queue by one! I've finally decided to bit the bullet and I've just upgraded my pre-order over at ED's shop. With a bit of luck I should have my Pandora by Christmas.

Thanks for that! I'll do it too, just can't do it right now.

Checking the numbers of availabel/sold 1GHz Pandoras in ED's Shop is a good way to see, how it's going. And it seems to go pretty well, numbers of Pandoras in stock goes down pretty fast and it seems that there are also comming new Units in pretty fast.


I'm still in search for an complete overview of ALL Pandoras ever built and shipped (classic, rebirth and 1GHz) but overall the Pandora sales seems to run pretty well.

Yep, as I said, that's what we are missing... And the best promotion as well.


Maybe we should call new Pandora 2+


Sorry I can't help myself, it reminds me to Amstrad/Schneider ZX Spectrum 2+,


and you guys are totally Sir Clive Sinclair and Sir Allan Sugar...


Sir Clive got great ideas, but Allan was more successful in "business vulgaris"... I just hope that iCP2 is not C5...

 

[hedwards]

ED shows us estimates of preorders left. Thanks for that.


Let's say we got 500 preorders left. No big deal, 1300 more sales will do it away.


However, this is only step1.


Step 2: How many Pandora is sold (for sure) until now? I bet there are many thousands... and here we go again:


MISSING OF THIS INFORMATION IS THE WORST ENEMY OF THE PROJECT RIGHT NOW.


Please, elaborate as well as you did before... we all missing it. Craigix, you're welcome (but do some rest first).


THIS IS THE NUMBER WE SHOULD BE PROUD OF, THIS IS THE BEST PR FACT FOR PANDORA PROJECT.


But valid numbers please, of course. You can say "more then xxx" etc if it is business secret or "can't guarantee exact numbers".


Step 3: Compare those numbers!


Number above (~500) is nothing against thousands of happy users.


This is the best way to regain confidence and to stimulate ppl to donate/upgrade.


Btw drop-shipping is way to go imho. It should be put on voting, Craigix own us that - to listen what community wants.

Except it's not that simple. I take it you forget all the times where they were bitten by providing us information that was subsequently proven to be wrong, when they found out that they had been lied to. I'm not surprised that they're holding back a bit when they know the numbers aren't reliable. I'd probably do the same thing if the villagers were out with torches when the numbers weren't right.

 

[TrashyMG]

 

[Twiitcher]

This above all is something I think is crucial to any credibility Craig may have left - until he has managed to fulfill all orders placed from his shop he should remain motivated and focused on getting them shipped.


Credibility of Craig vs ED - well, enough said. Clear accurate communication to the community with valid reasons for issues / delays, Craig vs ED - judge for yourself. Commitment to the project, focus and following through on plans Craig vs ED - you decide. I got my Pandora early on; luckily I was very early in ordering (first 2 hours), since my purchase all the support / answers I got were from the community or from ED. Lots of silence or non-answers from Craig.


My personal experience may vary from yours but in my book ED is the one I trust and have faith in. Craig has managed to create 2 new products, all while the original pandora production floundered. My question is, does it seem ok that all that effort was put into the new products and OP seemed to fall by the wayside? I don't believe that he could possibly have put as much effort into the OP project as in the 2 new ones, or that they didn't detract from his focus. That to me is wrong, mainly because he had / has many customers with unfulfilled orders.


I bought an original ICP, not because I really needed it and not because I thought it was a good value, but i was trying to support the OP team, That $99 bucks was a lot of money to me, I have my doubts that any profits from that endeavor were used to help the OP product as was implied during it's marketing. Frankly I stopped trusting Craig long ago. He claims he can sell, perhaps so, but I'm not a fan of professional car salesman - draw whatever correlations you want from my analogy, they're probably accurate.


Too bad it's come to this, come on Craig SELL!! SELL!! SELL!! and get the monkey off your back. Show the disbelievers you are capable, prove me wrong, I personally think it's more blather. ED seems to have done a great job seemingly solo since the ICP started shipping, frankly I haven't seen much from you, I have little faith in anything you utter. I've resisted this conclusion for a long time, but I think it's non-recoverable now.


Twiitcher

 

[darkborn]

ED shows us estimates of preorders left. Thanks for that.


Let's say we got 500 preorders left. No big deal, 1300 more sales will do it away.


However, this is only step1.


Step 2: How many Pandora is sold (for sure) until now? I bet there are many thousands... and here we go again:


MISSING OF THIS INFORMATION IS THE WORST ENEMY OF THE PROJECT RIGHT NOW.


Please, elaborate as well as you did before... we all missing it. Craigix, you're welcome (but do some rest first).


THIS IS THE NUMBER WE SHOULD BE PROUD OF, THIS IS THE BEST PR FACT FOR PANDORA PROJECT.


But valid numbers please, of course. You can say "more then xxx" etc if it is business secret or "can't guarantee exact numbers".


Step 3: Compare those numbers!


Number above (~500) is nothing against thousands of happy users.


This is the best way to regain confidence and to stimulate ppl to donate/upgrade.


Btw drop-shipping is way to go imho. It should be put on voting, Craigix own us that - to listen what community wants.

Except it's not that simple. I take it you forget all the times where they were bitten by providing us information that was subsequently proven to be wrong, when they found out that they had been lied to. I'm not surprised that they're holding back a bit when they know the numbers aren't reliable. I'd probably do the same thing if the villagers were out with torches when the numbers weren't right.

But there were already miss-informations!


Errare humanum est, ignoscere divinum, da mi Pandora mille, deinde centum!


Ad omnia paratus Non est bonum esse hominem solum.

 

[palstyo]

What makes you think he isn't thinking? I don't have any inside information, but the fact is that ultimately, CC caused most of this mess. It's been confirmed mulitple times that they failed to meet the bare minimum requirements on things like the oxidation issue.


I don't really know what's going on internally, but I was personally surprised that Craig's customers weren't receiving units in proportion to the open orders after that cash infusion via the investment plan. I may well have misunderstood it, and ED did explain it a bit when I asked a few months ago. But, the whole situation is confusing and I get the sense that there's some sort of major communications failure going on internally.

Point is word...


Don't explain to me previous situation coz. I know it.


Problem is he use our money for refund and now he did it again.


If he clear all 1GHz unit as he said I didn't say like that.

 

[darkborn]

Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum (Seneca)

 

[darkborn]

Except it's not that simple.

Sorry I wanted to say - There is nothing to lose!

 

[Wally]

Can I remind everyone that is replying to this thread that both Michael and Craig are human.

 

[darkborn]

Can I remind everyone that is replying to this thread that both Michael and Craig are human.

Prove it.