Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Adam 2 selling strategy

If we were to agree with the fundamental philosophy that a company must make money (not just revenue, but positive profits), I wonder what Notion Ink's Adam 2 strategy is - Is it to sell a premium hardware at a high price with high margins or is it to sell huge volumes at low price but at a low margin?

Think about it closely - would you think either of those would work for this company?

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Some interesting Notink Ink investment / financials research from a fellow blogger

 

 

 

 

take a look:

http://isthecakealie.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/notion-ink-who-owns-runs-and-funds-the-company/

That's pretty interesting work there, moistcake. I'm no expert in financial matters (OK, I know a bit of this and that...) but the whole Suncorp thing looks rather strange.

BTW - it would be nice if you add a few links to the filings for those who want to look at it further.

 

 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Paying some attention...

It does appear that NI is paying attention to outstanding customer issues (see the last 2 posts... very unusual that they've come in succession, and you can also see Rohan responding to some customer posts on the blog rather quickly). Why the sudden change or behavior, your guess is as good as mine.

This is a good sign.

Too early to tell much, and in my opinion too late to make a real positive impact, but at least you see movement. And for that reason I'm going to wait before I bitch about his new promises on the last senseless post.

Just one note - Rohan, get SOMEONE ELSE to manage PR & support responses on a consistent basis. Or is there no one else?

Monday, September 19, 2011

Hey, why am I the villain for pointing out what they do?

I had 2 topics to discuss

(1) Notion Ink economics and

(2) Response to the 2 new posts on the Notion Ink blog

But something hit my comments yesterday so I need to digress a bit. Here's the comment (the one that's titled 'AREN'T YOU BEING AN A**HOLE?'), and I thought I should respond to a few points.

1. Don't you see the delicious irony? - I mean, you post something that's critical on NI on their blog, they moderate it out, and then you post it on my blog while also calling me an a**hole! And I allow it.

2. Why am I the a-hole for saying the things that you're saying anyway - I mean, out there in your own comments you say they botched the launch, their co-founders are dumb, they don't keep their promises and so on, but apparently I'm the a-hole for saying it on my blog

3. You're upset that my blog is out to cause them to fail - That makes no sense! Let me say a couple of things in my defense. There were 5 Notion Ink fan sites before my blog even started, www.notioninkfan.com (now defunct), www.notioninking.com (dead), www.notioninkspot.com (dead), www.notionaddicts.com (pretty much dead), www.notioninkhacks.com (became tabletroms.com once they realized the limitations of sticking to NI), and now they're all gone. Did I cause it? No. Notion Ink and their behavior caused it. Why are you upset about my one blog when all these fan sites couldn't keep the fan going?! I mean if they're the great company that many say they are, then why bother about my blog? Here's another thought - I started my blog in April 2011. Guess what? I waited all that time to see if they cleaned their act, and they've been getting feedback since late 2010!

4. Your statements about " he is trying to get things right in his own unprofessional way. But he is doing it none the less" is just silly - Seriously. Do you need industry experience to figure out that a product needs to be supported once released? does it take a genius to know that people expect you to follow-up on what you say? Have you seen one post from him since Jan to say 'hey, we screwed up, we'll do better next time?' - do you honestly believe that the guy is actually trying?! What did he do to get a  pass from scrutiny? Why are they special now? They were in 2010, and that's long gone! You do know that the CEO has said that they have '100+ employees', 'operations in dozens of countries', and they are doing research on so many areas... so they're a big company now, no?

My blog is the only active blog that's highlighting this company's behavior but you want me to stop, and yet my blog is the only one where you have an outlet to complain! 

Think about it. You complain in NI's blog, they censor you out. You complain on Tabletroms you'll have a bunch of people telling you to get lost - and the moderators are very clear that they are friends with NI so won't push for changes. Complain on Notion Addicts and no one cares because they're dead. Complain on conclave, and they will moderate you out. So here's a company with tons of problems and misleading behaviour and you want everyone to " be quiet"? Why? so more people can buy and cry? Is that the right thing to do?

Sorry, I'm not stopping. If I see change in their behavior I will gladly come out and say good words, I've got no innate hate. But right now they're a joke.

And for you my friend, my blog is always home - you comment and it will appear so long as it is not abusive. I'm not Notion Ink.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

New round of investment closed at Notion Ink

That's what the latest post mentioned today, and then went on to describe more mumbo-jumbo. There are some real nuggets in the newest post, and I'll get to it in a new post tomorrow - there's so much to write!

The phrase "a fool and his money are soon parted" comes to mind when I think of investors putting money into Notion Ink.

All I can tell you is that after reading the full post I threw up violently on the side and then laughed uncontrollably at some of the hopeful clowns in the blog comments.

Keep tuned for tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Looking back... and where we are now. Even the most loyal fans are turning back.

Way back in April I had my first post in Notion Ink's official forum.  I titled it

"Supporters, wake up. This needs to be said"

After a few days, Notion Ink promptly 'locked' the thread preventing further responses. It's open now, but when I post into it - it gets moderated out. I guess the attitude is "if you can't hear criticism, it mustn't be there"

In case the thread is removed, the exact text was my first blog post too. I urge you to read it and consider where we are now.

Today I noticed a few posts on the Notion Ink blog. Some of the most loyal fans are now beginning to say that NI did not deliver and it's been promises. I actually applaud them for coming out and saying it out aloud after supporting NI for long.

I don't intend to question their loyalty - to each their own. What saddens me is how Notion Ink, and Rohan, treated their/his supporters - people that might have helped spread the word and help NI get traction. I said  repeatedly that this company shows no inclination to learn or act on feedback - I point it to the CEO's arrogance and stupidity, all the more so because the co-founders are spineless and voiceless. But that's what it has been.

I have zero respect to the integrity and vision of this company, and no expectation that they will deliver Adam 2 in a way it must be. And it's not about blind dislike, in my next post I'll point out to the sheer market challenge they have and with their current level of lack of skill, intelligence and work ethic - it's unlikely they are up to it.

Monday, September 12, 2011

The coming of Adam 2

So, it seems Notion Ink is hard at work on Adam 2 and Eden 2 or whatever it is. All in time for the next CES. Good for them, maybe they're finally focusing on something and it will be a decent release. Hey, power to them if they actually do a good job of it, but I personally won't believe it until I see at least 2 production releases from them.

I also wonder who they're planning to sell to...having alienated their entire customer base. And no tablet company is going to survive selling a few piddly hundreds or thousands. Has anyone noticed that the number of new posts on a given day in their official forum has dwindled down to single digits? And on TabletRoms too you see steady increase on other tablet forums and notionaddicts for all practical purposes is dead. I guess I can say 'I told you so'

And with that, my next crappy masterpiece.

Will Notion Ink Adam 2 release sell millions

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Notion Ink - Paper Tiger Company & CEO / Maybe mine should be the, ahem, Notion Ink Blog?

You know, the CEO of Notion Ink not so long ago said he'd blog every week. That didn't happen. So he said "every 2 weeks!", that didn't happen as well. It's been 6 weeks since the last post and even the ardent fans are getting a bit restless waiting for his pearls of wisdom.

But I'm pretty consistent - perhaps I'm the Only Notion Ink Blog that's consistent! Most of the blogging  fans have long vanished and the company CEO doesn't do it much either. That leaves the burden on yours truly, jksaur. And I intend to hog the limelight if you will please allow me. Maybe Notion Ink should simply call mine the official Notion Ink Blog, at least my blog is more true than the official one, don't you think?

So, what was I going to say? That Notion Ink is a great example of a paper tiger company. Great on paper (or blog) but terrible in reality. Most buyers buy the dream and deal with a nightmare, and some will keep singing his praise and vision and Tegra 4 with root capability and 9000 ports while forgetting that a company with no clue about its target market cannot survive.

Let's just break down the operations of a typical small consumer electronics company, shall we? Nothing fancy. From ideation/inception all the way to customer service. So, the basic steps (not necessarily in the exact sequence)

Ideation->R&D->Strategy->Supply chain->Production & Quality Control->Marketing->Distribution->Product Support->Reverse Logistics (customer returns etc.)

Now we'll see where they did well. Most reasonably successful companies tend to most of these steps quite well, with spikes (strong performance) in some areas and improvement points in some other. How does NI fare?

Ideation->Pretty good

R&D->Mediocre - when you consider choices and performances of various components

Strategy -> Disaster. They have absolutely no clue what the their target segment is or what their clear value proposition is (well, if you don't know your customers you don't know what your proposition is either...)

Supply chain->Bad but perhaps got a bit better by PO3

Production & Quality Control->Terrible, absolutely terrible quality control

Marketing->Used to be good. Now bad. Keep in mind their only marketing in the blog and involvement of media in some interviews. And you'll all agree that there's no marketing anymore.

Distribution->No distribution except an average site

Product Support->Terrible, awful

Reverse Logistics->Disaster

So, the 2 areas where they did OK was ideation - which is lot of paper and some design and Marketing - which is all words. Everything else? Argh. So - it is a great paper tiger.

Don't also forget that their development capability is "incompetency" - from the really bad software quality to the fact that if they weren't propped up by TabletRoms they'd be dead by now. Which brings me to the first cartoon for this site! Enjoy my Leonardo Da Vinci like artistic capability!

Notion Ink Failure - a tablet company that depends on the hobby programmers

 

So, like all of you I await the next blog post on the official blog, which will hopefully prove me wrong by not being about "research on shades of gray on the left lower quadrant of the Adam when in 70% brightness under fluorescence light conditions and how it will affect the 4th generation Adam" (and I kid you not that there will be blog responses to that too saying "Oh thank you Rohan for posting something! You are a visionary!")

You'll hear from me again soon

Warm Regards, (about 40C)

jksaur