Trying to find a fair solution

[timwylie]

Although I agree with everything else you said, I do take issue to some degree with your last statement and tone.  Without the original preorderers, all the R&D and CC stuff would have never happened.  The investors were able to restart production because all the designs had been worked out already.  Without the preorderers, there would have been no pandora to restart in Germany.  You may not think it has anything to do with the preorderers, but it does because that money allowed ANY pandora to exist in the first place.  So, maybe you should be nice.

 

[ekianjo]

Although I agree with everything else you said, I do take issue to some degree with your last statement and tone.  Without the original preorderers, all the R&D and CC stuff would have never happened.  The investors were able to restart production because all the designs had been worked out already.  Without the preorderers, there would have been no pandora to restart in Germany.  You may not think it has anything to do with the preorderers, but it does because that money allowed ANY pandora to exist in the first place.  So, maybe you should be nice.

I'm just saying that if we had only relied on pre-orders money the project would have been dead for a long time. The reason why the project still exists is not because of the original pre-orders. 

 

[ShleeDragon]

ED is an amazing man. He deserves to be shown respect for going above and beyond.

 

[HelenF]

And as a matter of fact, it's not thanks to the original pre-orders that we can have a Pandora nowadays, in case you did not notice. That money was lost long, long ago. It's because a number of investors came behind ED to restart the production in Germany that the project is still alive. This has nothing to do with original pre-orders anymore. Get your story right.

Even though the money is gone, and the project would be dead now without ED and the investors, it's probably also true to say there wouldn't be any Pandora without the original pre-orders.

 

[sswam]

Maybe someone has a rich uncle who would like to donate 150K EUR for this project, then you'd all get the unit right away, but I wouldn't bet on it.

This is a good idea, why didn't we think of this before?

Step forward if you have a rich uncle!

 

[Trip]

The fact that people are trying to get Ed to dump all the original pre-orders, just so they can maybe buy a Pandora 2 sometime in the future, also shows how much this community has changed (and not for the better). This was supposed to be (first and foremost) a community project and these people wouldn't even have a Pandora if it weren't for the original pre-orders funding the project.

You don't seem to understand. These are not ED's costumers in the first place. ED delivered all his pre-orders already. Now Craig is doing ZERO, i.e. NOTHING to take care of the pre-orders, and ED is going out of his way to support them because Craig does not care one bit about all the money he gets from people, be it Pandora original preorders, Pandora 1Ghz preorders or ICP2.

If ED had dropped Craig support, the Pandora could be sold cheaper by now, and we would be more surely on our way for a Pandora successor. Instead of that you get people who are angry that ED cannot deliver everything for free, and almost nobody complaining about Craig who is the key person to blame for not taking care of HIS customers in the first place. Some of the comments in this thread are just ridiculous towards ED and plain painful to read. 

And as a matter of fact, it's not thanks to the original pre-orders that we can have a Pandora nowadays, in case you did not notice. That money was lost long, long ago. It's because a number of investors came behind ED to restart the production in Germany that the project is still alive. This has nothing to do with original pre-orders anymore. Get your story right.

First of all I never had a go at Ed, just offered another alternative. Maybe you should go back and re-read my post so you can get your story straight.

Secondly, I'm getting really tired of people trying to blame just Craig or CC for the current mess of the Pandora project.

If you knew anything about the actual project you'd realize that it's down to a lot of different factors.

For example..

The devs sold units to new customers instead of supplying to the pre-orders ( this was before CC completely mucked things up). This was a stupid move because a lot of the people that originally pre-ordered were devs who wanted to either create new software or work on the systems operating system itself. this was the main reason why they shelled out for a device that wasn't even released in the first place. Loosing people like this wasn't good for the community as the Pandora needed as much software and as many devs as possible.

This was also supposed to be a limited run which turned out to be continuous. This 'soured the milk' as the saying goes because the devs had promised to stand by the people that pre-ordered but then pushed them to the back of the line indefinitely. This was responsible for the first lot of mass cancellations.

And please don't say that it needed to be done for the project to survive because at that time the project wasn't in dire straights. When people asked if the project would die without doing this, they were reassured that the project would be able to continue without it but that it would be a lot easier with it. Go back and read through the forum threads if you don't believe me.

CC messed up the boards. In all honesty this was as much Craigs fault as CC's. Craig put all his faith in CC to deliver the product even though they had failed to produce on time twice already. Putting the success of the business in the hands of a company like that was never going to end well.

People on this forum should also share in the responsibility. Anyone that spoke out against the devs were jumped on by multiple forum users. Any chance of a intelligent argument went out the window and was replaced by straight forward abuse. It got so bad that Ed himself had to write a blog post asking people to stop with the attacks.

You don't think this put people off from buying a Pandora at all? You don't think that this wasn't responsible for people cancelling and leaving the community? Don't be so naive.

Craig told people to cancel, even though he didn't have the money to pay them all back. This is probably the dumbest thing I've ever known.

There are lots of other factors that came into play that either put people off from buying a Pandora or made them cancel their original order, like Craig bullying people to cancel, but this mess isn't down to any one thing. Ed must understand this or he wouldn't even entertain the notion of helping the rest of the pre-orderers in the first place.

 

[Trip]

And no the Pandora would never have been produced in the first place without people pre-ordering. That's just common sense. Without the pre-orderers putting up the money and bringing the Pandora to market, what would they have to invest in?

 

[ekianjo]

First of all I never had a go at Ed, just offered another alternative. Maybe you should go back and re-read my post so you can get your story straight.

I don't think I ever pointed any specific comment about you blaming ED.

Secondly, I'm getting really tired of people trying to blame just Craig or CC for the current mess of the Pandora project. If you knew anything about the actual project you'd realize that it's down to a lot of different factors.

ALlright, so Craig didn't do anything wrong when he asked for the 1 Ghz preorders. And that does not involve CC at all, by the way.

And see... oh, ICP2 does not involve CC at all, and it's not going super well either. No communication, deadlines completely missed, no answers to consumers asking for their money back... no, I'm sure this is an unfortunate coincidence and it has nothing to do with Craig at all. Nothing.

 

[Trip]

First of all I never had a go at Ed, just offered another alternative. Maybe you should go back and re-read my post so you can get your story straight.

I don't think I ever pointed any specific comment about you blaming ED.

You were responding to my post weren't you?

 

[ekianjo]

CC messed up the boards. In all honesty this was as much Craigs fault as CC's. Craig put all his faith in CC to deliver the product even though they had failed to produce on time twice already. Putting the success of the business in the hands of a company like that was never going to end well.

Yeha, and let's not forget Craig had no formal agreement with CC. No contract or whatsoever. Yeah, again, nothing to do with Craig I guess?

First of all I never had a go at Ed, just offered another alternative. Maybe you should go back and re-read my post so you can get your story straight.

I don't think I ever pointed any specific comment about you blaming ED.

You were responding to my post weren't you?

Yeha, and when I make general comments it does not mean they concern you. Read my post again. I can answer a single post and then comment on the overall stuff I read. I dont have to address every post one by one, do I ?

 

[ekianjo]

but this mess isn't down to any one thing.

I agree with you there, but it's off topic to what I was answering in the first place.

The fact is, the original preorder money is gone down the drain, and the investors for Rebirth made it possible to continue the production and deliver ED's remaining preorder queue. The current Pandora is not financed by the original preorders.

 

[Trip]

CC messed up the boards. In all honesty this was as much Craigs fault as CC's. Craig put all his faith in CC to deliver the product even though they had failed to produce on time twice already. Putting the success of the business in the hands of a company like that was never going to end well.

Yeha, and let's not forget Craig had no formal agreement with CC. No contract or whatsoever. Yeah, again, nothing to do with Craig I guess?

I've just blamed that partly on Craig. Do you even read the things other people post?

 

[Trip]

but this mess isn't down to any one thing.

I agree with you there, but it's off topic to what I was answering in the first place.

The fact is, the original preorder money is gone down the drain, and the investors for Rebirth made it possible to continue the production and deliver ED's remaining preorder queue. The current Pandora is not financed by the original preorders.

I never said the current Pandoras were financed by the pre-orders. What I said was that the Pandora wouldn't have been brought to market without them and by extension the new Pandoras wouldn't exist without them either.

 

[ekianjo]

CC messed up the boards. In all honesty this was as much Craigs fault as CC's. Craig put all his faith in CC to deliver the product even though they had failed to produce on time twice already. Putting the success of the business in the hands of a company like that was never going to end well.

Yeha, and let's not forget Craig had no formal agreement with CC. No contract or whatsoever. Yeah, again, nothing to do with Craig I guess?

I've just blamed that partly on Craig. Do you even read the things other people post?

Yeah, I do read what you write, but when you don't even sign anything black and white on paper it's your whole responsibility, not "partly" anymore.

 

[dgame]

but this mess isn't down to any one thing.

I agree with you there, but it's off topic to what I was answering in the first place.

The fact is, the original preorder money is gone down the drain, and the investors for Rebirth made it possible to continue the production and deliver ED's remaining preorder queue. The current Pandora is not financed by the original preorders.

I don't think this is an entirely fair statement. Unless the Rebirth started everything over (new case design, new board design, new nubs, etc.) then the current Pandora, even the 1Ghz, is still a financial benefactor of the original Pandora pre-orders. Funding the development and molds for the Pandora design is money they did not have to spend again because of the pre-orders. So don't act like somehow the pre-orders don't matter because of the investors. The investors were needed to re-start the project, hence the Rebirth name. It did not start with the investors. You said it yourself "...the investors for Rebirth made it possible to continue the production and deliver ED's remaining preorder queue." Continue what production?

 

[Trip]

Yeah, I do read what you write, but when you don't even sign anything black and white on paper it's your whole responsibility, not "partly" anymore.

What the hell are you on about? It takes two to do a business deal doesn't it? and doesn't a hand shake and emails seal a deal too? The company told Craig that they could do what he wanted. This alone makes them partly responsible.

 

[rohezal]

The current Pandora is not financed by the original preorders.

This is true but the development costs were funded by the preorders. MWeston (Electronic Shematics), DaveC (The case) etc.

 

[EvilDragon]

Please don't keep fighting over that.

The case design has been paid by me AFTER I got the invested capitals, so that one has NOT been paid by the preorders.

(According to Craig, he funded the whole development and preorder money was just used for the production itself, but I don't think that's entirely true).

So basically, the PCB Design, the prototypes and the mold has been paid with money from the preorders.

 

[pmprog]

Maybe you should split that all off. I also saw somebody post about non-preorders effectively spamming these threads, making it harder for preorder people to communicate. Maybe if preorderers could be identified, they could be given a "group" in the forum, and this section is post-restricted to that group, mods and admins?

That way, people who are directly involved can be heard?

 

[timwylie]

Can we all just agree that the current Pandora isn't financed by preorders OR the re-investments for the rebirth edition?  Both were capital to begin production, and it essentially took those two rounds to get everything going.  ALL of that money is gone.  The current pandora is financed by people buying pandoras.  That's how business works.

And yeah, the original preordering was supposed to be a limited run of 4000 units.  Then it was going to be those 4000 had a special symbol on the case, then the case with all black (no markings), then the people with CC boards, then it just became the people at the back of the line.  And yes, it's true that even when it was CC boards new buyers were allowed to buy their way to the front of the line.  It's funny, but if I'd waited a year (or two) and paid almost the same amount, I would have gotten one.