Why I think NI in its current form will wither away and die

In my last post, a commentator asked if I would speculate on NI's future. And here is what I think... and why.

Notion Ink, in it's current form, will wither away, with a whimper, and Adam will die. There, I said it. There is no future for Notion Ink or Adam the Tablet. Now let's go deeper.

I said "in it's current form" because companies, no matter how badly failing, don't necessary "die." You could still have a 1 man company, someone else could buy it for the name and so on. But in it's current form, as a company that makes Adam and Eve and whatever else, it will wither away.

Let's go back to the fundamental premise I talked of before - a company can exist in a commercially viable form when

a) It is a profitable enterprise

OR

b) It is a fast growing enterprise to which there will be capital infusion because there is promise of a significant future reward for today's risk

Of course, badly run companies can also be purchased for certain IP and then most of it killed away, but let's keep that out for the moment.

A company that makes no profit, no promise of significant future revenue or profits - will die. That's simply the economic reality of it.

Let us for a moment forget about Notion Ink's dysfunctional management and incompetent developers and apply (a) or (b)

1. Profitability - a consumer electronics company that makes tablets and sells only a couple of thousand with potentially 0 margin (or -ve, as it only started) is definitely losing money and not making it. Also consider they've been at it since 2009.

2. Growth - None. In fact, I still contend that the second release of order did much worse than the first. After utterly failing the first release, alienating its loyal customers, angering its reviewers and essentially falling back on an external hobby community to support its software development plans, there is no chance that they will magically sell millions. Maybe a few hundred gullible buyers and a few of the "die-hards" who still hopefully linger around. This isn't enough to keep it afloat. They don't have a clue on who their target market should be and they've certainly targeted the wrong market. The techie/hacker market is too small for them to sustain on.

You can look at a few important dimensions for growth and test if they're true. For a start-up company to grow really fast, one or more of these should be true

External factors (market, competition...)

1. A differentiation or business model that has a significant advantage & attraction in the market (for e.g. Square)


2. Weak or slow moving competitors


3. Govt. incentives, push, mass purchase, regulatory advantages

Internal factors

1. Significant  investment in marketing & sales, infrastructure to keep pace with growth


2. Ability to hire, retain, develop top talent


3. Strong distribution & sales channels and wide product availability

Now let's go back and test these against Notion Ink.

External factors (market, competition...)

1. A differentiation or business model that has a significant advantage & attraction in the market - Except PixelQi - nothing. The market for people willing to suffer the ADAM experience just so they can read in bright light is too, too small to factor growth. USB ports, HDMI are all good for a few techies, most don't care about features but about experiences.


2. Weak or slow moving competitors  - It's the other way around. With Apple, now Amazon and then the Transformer and Galaxy - it is a very hard market place that has wounded even the big and strong. The competitors are iterating rapidly and Adam, which once looked good on paper, is now history


3. Govt. incentives, push, mass purchase, regulatory advantages - Nope. None that I know of. The Indian govt. may have been a savior but they're off trying to build their 30,50,100$ tablets. Then there's many others coming up in the domestic market place too - have you read about Eva? (which I predict will vanish soon anyway)

Internal factors

1. Significant  investment in marketing & sales, infrastructure to keep pace with growth - Nope. For a company that takes months to even have a ticket system, botched service centers, no marketing medium except a strange blog - there sure isn't much happening here. The only exception to this is if there's a hidden investor who is pouring large sums for a flashy entrance post Adam 2. I would call that investor "stupid", they'd be better off buying the design and building a company that works rather than do it via NI. Getting a Tablet reference design isn't rocket science anymore. Read about Eva again, or the $99 chinese tablet.


2. Ability to hire, retain, develop top talent - Nope. If you're keeping a watch, the supposed "100 member" team of NI is sitting idle for months or are utterly incompetent because it's now beginning to look like NI is contracting developers from the TabletRoms community to help get ICS in place.


3. Strong distribution & sales channels and wide product availability - Not available anywhere. When the next product releases, if ever, I suspect it will be in few places. 

So, what am I missing? I don't know. No matter how I look at it, this is a lost cause. Sure Adam 2 might come, and the faithful will crow that it will change the world. But for something that built to a crescendo, this will be a slow slide to death.

You can also read a fine post by freedune with a different perspective but essentially coming to the same conclusion.

In the next post I'll mull about the ramifications of what I believe the relation is between NI and the development folks at TR.