Open? Questions

[jlebrech]

I'm no manufacturer or anything but i have a few questions.

How open is the Pandora, in terms or design?

Does this mean that chinese manufacturers can openly manufacture those at will and bring the price down instead of creating knockoffs of Sonys and Nintendos?

Will there be a licensing fee, or consultation for the main developers to manufacture the Pandora?

I imagine if this is totally free to reproduce that you will see those box in the schoolyards everywhere, especially if korea, china, japan factories jump on the bandwagon.

Good luck.

 

[Squidge]

They might decide to allow manufacture under license, but its certainly not totally free. Then again, that's never stopped the chinese from creating knockoffs.

 

[CoMiKe]

QUOTE
They might decide to allow manufacture under license, but its certainly not totally free.

Perhaps that would be a good way to earn money for craigix and co.

Licensing Pandora like an MSX would bring a lot more attention and software. Anyway, there should be some interest from other manufacturers on the product.

 

[icurafu]

you're living in fantasy land if you think misc chinese companies will get orders from TI.

Even if they use the same molds, the same controls, the same appearance completely; it's still have some crappy blackfin inside. Appealing to those only with the lowest IQ.

 

[goobers]

Who needs an emulator when your ripoff Pandora has a NES on a chip inside h34r:

 

[jlebrech]

Which a bit of chance i can see the Pandora being the IBM PC or the portable world.

There will be fully compatible clones, and Licensed device living together.
Just hope the dev has a good business model for the licensed models.

 

[quasist]

Which a bit of chance i can see the Pandora being the IBM PC or the portable world.

0.00%
Pandora is not IBM PC or THE PORTABLE WORLD

 

[Orkie]

Even if they use the same molds, the same controls, the same appearance completely; it's still have some crappy blackfin inside. Appealing to those only with the lowest IQ.

Umm... Have you ever actually used a Blackfin for anything? They are pretty good.

 

[Chip]

I don't see anybody bothering to license the Pandora design. It's a collection of off-the-shelf parts running on an open source OS. If somebody really wanted to reverse engineer it, it would take about an hour.

But really, who would bother? The Pandora team will already be making and selling units as cheaply as possible. Nobody will be able to make them for less without dropping features. It's not worth ripping off

 

[quasist]

The Pandora team will already be making and selling units as cheaply as possible. Nobody will be able to make them for less without dropping features.

Have you seen the costs of manifacture progress or it is just your imagination?

 

[_VWV_]

I don't see anybody bothering to license the Pandora design. It's a collection of off-the-shelf parts running on an open source OS. If somebody really wanted to reverse engineer it, it would take about an hour.

But really, who would bother? The Pandora team will already be making and selling units as cheaply as possible. Nobody will be able to make them for less without dropping features. It's not worth ripping off

Mass production will make it MUCH cheaper. Craigs first 3000+ batch won't be able to compete with 100000+ units by sony/nokia/whatever. NEVER.

 

[goobers]

Chip said it right- people seem to forget that the Pandora is just a linux running ARM-based computer. There really isn't anything to copy. However, if a company wanted to have Pandora software run on their device, they would likely need to get a whole bunch of OMAPs from TI, and from what I've heard, TI don't exactly want to cater to the niche market. Obviously needing the OMAP entirely depends on the amount of code that directly hits the hardware, and how much is just running standard libraries (SDL, OpenGL ES 2.0)

 

[Chip]

Mass production will make it MUCH cheaper. Craigs first 3000+ batch won't be able to compete with 100000+ units by sony/nokia/whatever. NEVER.

I really don't think the economy of scale will make as big of a difference as you think at that level. True, you could make 100k units for less per unit than 3k, but then what? Is there even a market for 100k of them? A big name like Sony or Nokia could probably create a market for a few hundred thousand of anything, but why would they? They both already make palmtop PCs / internet tablets. They've both already invested (probably) millions in developing and marketing their (more expensive) products. Why would they want to undercut their own sales with a dirt-cheap competitor? I guarantee you Sony and Nokia's margins are significantly higher than what Pandora will be pulling in.

I suppose it is entirely possible that a Chinese company could make a knockoff version and sell it for less. I would think the chances are pretty low though, and it's not like you can do anything about it anyway. If you had the option of copying a device that sells millions or a device that sold a few thousand, which would you choose?

 

[_VWV_]

The Pandora team will already be making and selling units as cheaply as possible.

No they won't. Not because they don't do their best, but because they are only the Pandora team. This device could have been made cheaper if it was produced by, say, Nokia. I totally agree that Nokia’s money appetite is huge but on the other hand they have lower production costs, they can buy spares for less money. But why should they bother to copying the Pandora?

Is there even a market for 100k of them? A big name like Sony or Nokia could probably create a market for a few hundred thousand of anything, but why would they? They both already make palmtop PCs / internet tablets. They've both already invested (probably) millions in developing and marketing their (more expensive) products. Why would they want to undercut their own sales with a dirt-cheap competitor? I guarantee you Sony and Nokia's margins are significantly higher than what Pandora will be pulling in.

Dirt-cheap competitor? Some people say they are ready to spend 250 pounds for the Pandora. Nokia n810 costs 400$ in the US, so one might suppose their next device (n900??) would probably cost the same (moving the n810 to a smaller price). Nokia n800 (it's the same as n810 from the hardware point of view with the exception of keyboard) costs 150 pounds at play.com (used to cost the same price as the n810).
Yeah, Nokia has already invested a lot in their tablets. That is why they will certainly go on. What chip do you think the n900 will be based on? I'm pretty sure it's going to be the Ti 35xx. So basically the n900 is a possible competitor to the Pandora, because (I think) it will have almost the same features as the Pandora. SO to answer you question "Is there even a market for 100k of them", I'd say yes, I think, there is a market for the n900 and it will cost about the same as the n810. You see.. you don’t have to copy the Pandora to create a competitor for it….
EDIT: Ok, Nokia won't make it cheaper.. not because they can't, but because the majority will prefer the n900 to the Pandora.
EDIT:

 

[Exophase]

you're living in fantasy land if you think misc chinese companies will get orders from TI.

Why wouldn't they be able to? OMAP3550 is going to be publicly available to anyone, in low quantities. TI even had prices up (but I guess they took them down).

 

[Chip]

I guess it all comes down to what you mean by "competitor". To me, that means a device that the sort of people who are likely to buy a Pandora would be tempted to buy instead. We know the feature set and price of the Pandora. So to be a legitimate competitor, a device would have to either offer (nearly) the same functionality for less money, or offer more functionality for (nearly) the same price. There are lots of less expensive portable computing devices, but they don't stack up in the features department. There are more powerful devices too, but they're a lot more expensive.

The Nokia tablets are great for what they are, but the N810 is ~$70 more than a Pandora and lacks some very important features (gaming controls, faster CPU/GPU, dedicated community, etc).

Nokia could make an n900 Pandora clone, but do you really think for one minute they would sell a far superior device in six months for less than their flagship model now? Moore's law doesn't work that fast. It's kind of a moot point anyway because I don't see Nokia cloning the Pandora, and anything short of a clone (or an improvement) is not going to compete for my dollar.

 

[randomhack]

I guess it all comes down to what you mean by "competitor". To me, that means a device that the sort of people who are likely to buy a Pandora would be tempted to buy instead. We know the feature set and price of the Pandora. So to be a legitimate competitor, a device would have to either offer (nearly) the same functionality for less money, or offer more functionality for (nearly) the same price. There are lots of less expensive portable computing devices, but they don't stack up in the features department. There are more powerful devices too, but they're a lot more expensive.

The Nokia tablets are great for what they are, but the N810 is ~$70 more than a Pandora and lacks some very important features (gaming controls, faster CPU/GPU, dedicated community, etc).

Nokia could make an n900 Pandora clone, but do you really think for one minute they would sell a far superior device in six months for less than their flagship model now? Moore's law doesn't work that fast. It's kind of a moot point anyway because I don't see Nokia cloning the Pandora, and anything short of a clone (or an improvement) is not going to compete for my dollar.



Umm well for one the discussion of n900 is hypothetical. But since we are at it, let me add my 2 cents.
Not very sure whether Nokia will be a serious competitor.

1. Note that Nokia has 2 OMAP24xx based tablets : N800 and N810. The N810 is fairly expensive and contains a GPS. N800 has the same CPU, screen and software but can be bought for around $220 US +tax + shipping. However nokia is discontinuing this model. It appears Nokia is more interested in GPS which adds significant cost. If the hypothetical N900 has a GPS, it will be more expensive than the Pandora and its target market will be very different.

2. N800/810 have terrible gaming controls. They simply werent designed to play games. A good controller is a must if you want to play games. The necessary CPU is there. It runs Linux. Has a SDL port. And has a great 800x480 screen. But no controls and that breaks the whole deal. The NES emulator on the N800 tries to get around by emulating buttons on the touch screen. But the lack of controls means that Nokia simply isnt interested in gaming on the platform. They are more focussed on their N-gage platform as far as games are concerned.

 

[Jonttu]

Which a bit of chance i can see the Pandora being the IBM PC or the portable world.

0.00%
Pandora is not IBM PC or THE PORTABLE WORLD

Sorry but I have to fix you on this one, he ment the IBM PC of the portable world. As in the new thinkpad which is kicking all other notebooks to the side.

 

[randomhack]

I guess it all comes down to what you mean by "competitor". To me, that means a device that the sort of people who are likely to buy a Pandora would be tempted to buy instead. We know the feature set and price of the Pandora. So to be a legitimate competitor, a device would have to either offer (nearly) the same functionality for less money, or offer more functionality for (nearly) the same price. There are lots of less expensive portable computing devices, but they don't stack up in the features department. There are more powerful devices too, but they're a lot more expensive.

The Nokia tablets are great for what they are, but the N810 is ~$70 more than a Pandora and lacks some very important features (gaming controls, faster CPU/GPU, dedicated community, etc).

Let me add that there is indeed a dedicated community around the tablets. Its not focused on gaming though. Look at internettablettalk.com, tabletblog,com and tabletschool.blogspot.com etc.

 

[goobers]

I guess it all comes down to what you mean by "competitor". To me, that means a device that the sort of people who are likely to buy a Pandora would be tempted to buy instead. We know the feature set and price of the Pandora. So to be a legitimate competitor, a device would have to either offer (nearly) the same functionality for less money, or offer more functionality for (nearly) the same price. There are lots of less expensive portable computing devices, but they don't stack up in the features department. There are more powerful devices too, but they're a lot more expensive.

The Nokia tablets are great for what they are, but the N810 is ~$70 more than a Pandora and lacks some very important features (gaming controls, faster CPU/GPU, dedicated community, etc).

Let me add that there is indeed a dedicated community around the tablets. Its not focused on gaming though. Look at internettablettalk.com, tabletblog,com and tabletschool.blogspot.com etc.


there seems to be a dedicated community for 'tablets' in the city where my uni is, but I'm not sure they're the same kind you're talking about...

anyway:

The thing is that there is quite a large (hopefully) community of users and developers for the Pandora, and any clone or competing device is going to have to gain one.