I’m losing interest in the DualCor. Not because of the product but because of the delays and the unclear PR messages. If others share my opinion then it not good news for DualCor.
Two weeks ago, GottaBeMobile published a statement from Rob Howe at DualCor saying that the DualCor v1 would not be released.
Earlier this week, Judies diary published this:
I just received a brand new DualCor cPC with updated hardware and software. I believe that this is considered version 0.9, which means that the release model should follow shortly.
So I raised a comment on GearDiary referring to the original GottaBeMobile statement. When I went back to GottaBeMobile, the statement had been updated and no longer said that the version 1 would not be released. I contacted GottaBeMobile and it turns out that yes, the statement changed. GottaBeMobile apologized for forgetting to put an ‘updated’ note on the post. I don’t have a problem with updated statements. Life doesn’t follow a project plan.
Meanwhile, Judie got in touch with Rob Howe for an update to try and clear the issue up.
The statement from DualCor has now been published and it doesn’t really say anything concrete although reading between the lines, it appears that they’ve developed a plug-in ‘module’ to enable Wifi and Bluetooth radios. Sounds like a combo USB stick with a tailored casing to me but we’ll have to see on that one.
My feeling is that if DualCor are aiming to release version 2 in spring 2007, there’s no point in releasing V1 for 6 months. Who’s going to buy V1 when they know V2 is around the corner? I guess they will use V1 to satisfy some contracts (probably both from customers and investors) but that V2 will become the commercial product that reaches VARs and resellers.
I think the DualCor approach is interesting but either too late or not refined enough. Here’s a copy of the comment I left on GearDiary which shows my thoughts.
Interesting article. I’ve read a lot between the lines there.
The ‘core proposition’ (creating a kind of ACPI, control and data bus between low and high power computers that share peripherals.) is quite a nice idea of course. I’d love to share a disk, screen, loudspeakers, network from my ultra mobile PC to my smartphone. I can use my smartphone as a control device and leave my ultra mobile PC in a bag. The problem with cPC is that you are forced to have a pocket PC (The DualCor doesn’t have cellular radio right?) locked into the same casing as a UMPC. That negates many of the reasons for sharing resources in the first place and doesn’t solve any of the problems of sharing resources onto a Smartphone. You end up with three devices to look after. Now if they had developed a wireless way of doing this, a kind of advanced UPnP or clustered parallel BIOS, then I could keep my smartphone in my pocket and my ultra mobile PC in my bag. That would make for a very valuable IP.
The other advantage of this core proposition is battery life but in 18months, this problem will be solved anyway. We already have 4 hour UMPCs (Samsung Q1b, Raon Digital Vega) so its been proved that you don’t really need to hard-control a ultra mobile PC to achieve useable battery life.
Their core proposition doesn’t have much of a useable life in my opinion. In fact, I think they’ve just wasted 30% of the value of it in their one-year delay.
Steve / Chippy.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. You can’t purchase promises only products so the long delays only solidify consumer dislike.
I read that the dualcor is a nice little unit but the management needs to make a decision about what it wants to do and not simply attend annual tech conferences turning their noses at the Oqo+ and the other offerings that are released as of today.
Maybe they attended the same college business classes as the Flipstart crew ie: Procrastination 101 and Perfect Product Soon 102 :) Jerry.