Hey Pandora team- When will you guys strike a deal with Foxconn?


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Shed_a_Ninja

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Sorry if it may be offensive to ask this kind of question (I asked something akin to this over at Starmen.net regarding an officially licensed Mother 3 translation and I ultimately got banned for the mention; I can go into specifics about that incident if you guys want, lol), but I seriously want your product. The problem is, I don't think I can handle being separated from ~$375 USD without being guaranteed that your product will be in my hands about two weeks after (the standard for all of the other things that I order online).


All of the other video game systems (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc.) and handhelds (iPhone, DS, etc.) are assembled at Foxconn's plant in Taiwan. I was wondering if you- The Pandora Team- will eventually be able to strike a deal with an assembly plant like Foxconn to mass produce these suckers and offer them for sale on online retailers such as Play-Asia.com and the like. I know that in your "Where to Buy" section of the website you state: "Please be aware that the money needs to be paid in advance. Why? Easy: We need to pay all the parts for the Pandora production in advance. And as we don't have a million Euro lying around...", but is it possible for you awesome people to get a loan or possibly find a distributor in your local area? You guys sound like fine businessmen, so surely you can find somebody who would think that your product is worth selling to a wider audience, amirite?
 
They looked at venture capital, and the VCs would want too much control over the product. They're producing exactly what they want and targeting the audience they want. They got the most difficult part done - getting any of these beasties out of the door at all. Now they're working on straightening out the component manufacturing. Heck, they may move out of China all together. The iControlpad is made in the U.K. I could see them shipping the case molds to those folks before they take on any more debt or taking on a "partner" to get better manufacturing lines in China.


For VC funds they'd probably have to A) Lock things down in a fashion that isn't friendly to the hobbyist/home brew community to, hopefully, attract "top tier" commercial developers. VCs, are, after all looking for the largest return on their investment possible. They'd also probably have to make physical changes to the design of the Pandora to "line up" with the VCs vision.


I'd guess you're looking at late batch 3, probably batch 4+ to get to the point where the OpenPandora team has inventory on hand. I'm sure the OpenPandora team feels the delays in the component manufacturing more than you or I and are doing what they can to alleviate it. It is, after all, a chunk of their money tied up in this little beasty. I've no doubt that they'd rather be selling from inventory - I don't know how MUCH inventory - rather than selling pre-orders. I believe they'll get there, but it may take another round or two before they make it.


Cheers.
 
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wardred said:
I'd guess you're looking at late batch 3, probably batch 4+ to get to the point where the OpenPandora team has inventory on hand. I'm sure the OpenPandora team feels the delays in the component manufacturing more than you or I and are doing what they can to alleviate it. It is, after all, a chunk of their money tied up in this little beasty. I've no doubt that they'd rather be selling from inventory - I don't know how MUCH inventory - rather than selling pre-orders. I believe they'll get there, but it may take another round or two before they make it.

Cheers.
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Oh, alright, thanks. That's what I wanted to hear. So by late 2011?


EDIT: One way of thinking about these "batches" is that they are pretty much the "beta" batches, right?
 
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I'd rather allow members of the community here to invest in shares in the company if we needed to raise money, that way the people who owned shares would understand the Pandora and would also be promoting it because they want to make large profits.


It's something we have thought about and spoken about several times, it would just take a lot of work to arrange it to be possible.
 
It stops being a Community project at that point.. I know the team has benefited first hand from all my sarcasm.
 
im still ready to throw in an investment if theres a chance to profit, but im not quite ready to just throw donations at this project
 
If OpenPandora sold shares, you'd have a whole bunch of people who'd invest $100, and then they'd want financial disclosures, quarterly reports, shareholder meetings, and so on. It would be a huge hassle.


It would probably be a waste of time to take any investments of less than $100000 or so.
 
Craigix said:
I'd rather allow members of the community here to invest in shares in the company if we needed to raise money, that way the people who owned shares would understand the Pandora and would also be promoting it because they want to make large profits.


It's something we have thought about and spoken about several times, it would just take a lot of work to arrange it to be possible.
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Id be interested.
 
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Neko said:
If OpenPandora sold shares, you'd have a whole bunch of people who'd invest $100, and then they'd want financial disclosures, quarterly reports, shareholder meetings, and so on. It would be a huge hassle.


It would probably be a waste of time to take any investments of less than $100000 or so.
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I'd think we would insist on a minimum investment and probably try to keep the number of people lower rather than higher, we could have regular meetings or a private forum. It's something which is on the back burner but also something I do sort of like the idea of (and it's the only investment idea I like).
 
I hope the minimum would be low enough that I could afford it, i.e. less than 100k. ^^
 
If I had money invested in this project (rather than merely loaned) I might be a bit more demanding of how OPT deals with delays - as a customer I don't mind that mistakes were made (by supplying companies) and weren't picked up until MP started. As a first project I don't demand perfection (except in the finished product ;) , but as an investor I'd have more of an interest in the project being more of a success. I can only imagine how imagine how stressful the current situation is - if it affected my bottom line as well as yours I might be slightly more stressed about it myself.


It's hard to say what I mean - I do wish you guys well, and hope for my own sake that the Pandora is a success and loads of good software comes out for it. But investing money with an aim to get more money out in the long run (anything else would be charity), it's a different proposition.
 
FoxConn is a good company from what I see(heck, I see that logo daily in my IT work) but a lot of good points have been raised here. The Pandora project has already been stated to be a small-time project that they do not expect to gain a large following. This device is powerful - too powerful for most people. You might liken the Pandora to the PS3 at its launch. It wasn't terribly popular despite being clearly superior to everything else out there. It was too much money for many people's tastes (myself included, though I now own a PS3).


This is a niche market. As such, it might very well not be practical to make provisions for mass production (at least not yet). Even if the Pandora catches on and demand increases to the point where this becomes necessary, the handheld is still very young. Basically yes, these are beta batches.


Losing creative control over the development of the Pandora would be a disaster, especially at this stage in its development. I think it's best to do things as they're currently being done - get everything designed, refined and built small-time and sell the handheld, and maybe, just maybe, if things turn out more popular than expected, some kind of deal might be in order to meet that demand. But again, this is a very niche product, so it wouldn't be surprising if that never happened.


I know we'd all like to see the development and manufacture sped up so we get our Pandoras, but at this point, I'd prefer things done right over them being done fast.
 
I suggested a long time ago that a security payable in appstore credits be sold. That of course assumes there are going to be enough worthwhile products to support it, but I guess that would be your risk. To ease regulation concerns, it might be better to brand it as some sort of club.
 
FoxConn tortures and kills people... just in case you guys dont know.


I - as a worker - wouldn't want to work there really...


I guess siding with FoxConn would be a bit of a moral problem with me...
 
...And had 12 14 suicides last year alone! And 1 last month apparently! Way to start off the new year!
 
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Craigix said:
It's something we have thought about and spoken about several times, it would just take a lot of work to arrange it to be possible.
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Go on Craig, as the Captain says :


picard_entrepreneurship.jpg
 
I'd never have anything to do with a company like FoxConn.


I'll leave that to 'thirsty' types like Steve Jobs. Karma will catch up with him.
 
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oh man i was ready to rip this thread a new one, until i realized its a gravedig :{ and that suicide argument carries no weight, my old high school, being the top high school in northeast ohio, top 3 in all of ohio, has like 2 suicides a year at least, doesnt mean we should eradicate all high schools across the country, not even the ones that are worse than mine, and please dont turn this thread now into ripping on the american education system, i need no explanation of it
 
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