Although Fusion Garage was never short on ambition, good products and healthy sales always seemed somewhat beyond the company’s reach. Initially begun as part of the CrunchPad project, a joint venture with Michael Arrington, Fusion Garage split off amid some acrimony – spawning a lawsuit or two in the process – and decided to go its own way with the “JooJoo“ slate.

Sales of the JooJoo disappointed, and Fusion Garage went back to the labs to cook up the Grid10 and its companion smartphone, the Grid4, running Android with a heavily-customized UI on top. An over-enthusiastic teaser campaign and expensive pricing left potential tableteers unimpressed, however, forcing a quick $200 price cut.

That cut still wasn’t enough to drive sufficient sales to keep the company going, and last month customers reported calls going unanswered and pre-orders being frozen. Fusion Garage said it was attempting to secure new funding, but that doesn’t look to have been successful.

[via Business Insider]

“Unfortunately, none of our efforts have resulted in any communication from the company to the customers. Given all of this, we don’t have any other choice but to cease working with FG effective tomorrow.” Fusion Garage PR company

In the Fusion Garage forums, meanwhile, pre-order customers and the few to have already received their Grid10 tablet have turned up news that the company’s lawyers have resigned over lack of payment. It appears the company is unlikely to deliver either the price-slashed Grid10 or the replacement tablet to existing JooJoo owners, as promised.

Fusion Garage came to notoriety after the CrunchPad debacle, with the company initially intending to work with TechCrunch on a low-cost web tablet and then striking off alone instead. The fruit of that decision, the JooJoo, was roundly panned by reviewers and reportedly only a handful of units were sold.

The company returned earlier this year, running a teaser campaign ahead of the eventual launch of the Grid10 tablet and Grid4 smartphone, each Android-based with a heavily customized UI. The Grid10 was meant to begin shipping in earnest at the beginning of October, while the Grid4 was expected sometime in Q4; neither of those milestones were achieved.

[via Engadget]

The upside to the delay in shipping the Grid 10 if you are interested in one is that Fusion Garage has slashed $200 off the price of both tablets. The new WiFi only price is $299 with the WiFi/3G version at $399. That certainly makes the tablets more appealing. The Grid 10 runs the Android-based Grid OS and will be more appealing now with the new price.

Fusion Garage told Engadget that it has always intended to launch the Grid 10 at the new lower prices. The company claims that negotiations with an ODM supplier kept it from being able to offer the current prices before. I am finding that a bit hard to believe. I think it more likely that Fusion Garage saw the lackluster interest and just slashed prices. The delay in shipment is based on new criteria in the Flash player 10.2 approval process.

[via Android Community]

After the video we were greeted by a man by the supposed name of Ian Quincy, calling himself the TabCo CEO and letting people know that apparently he was better known as “IQ.” He spoke quickly of the many parody and viral ads that had been released over the past few months, crowning this speech off with a shocker:

“TabCo is a parody company, and I’m not a real CEO.”

Quincy at this point introduces the “true” CEO of the group that would ACTUALLY be taking charge of the project they were about to reveal, that being Chandra Rathakrishnan of Fusion Garage, a group we know as the creators of the joojoo tablet and the proposed second generation joojoo tablet running Android. For those of you not having followed along with what may have been the least successful tablet of all time, this is a tablet that was out fairly early in the game, saw installs of both Mac OS X and Windows 7, and saw some criticism at the hands of those not particularly happy with Fusion Garage’s handling of the joojoo software. One of the first items Rathakrishnan speaks about is that everyone who had previously purchased a Fusion Garage joojoo tablet would now receive this new tablet he was about to reveal for free – a rather sizable claim unless you actually believe that only 64 of those old tablets were sold in the first place.

Next at this point, we’re feeling sort of duped. What we’re seeing in the presentation video is a big screen with admittedly nice looking graphics (whipped up by the same ad agency responsible for TabCo) and Rathakrishnan speaking about the tablet (and eventually the phone, but we’ll get to that later.) After each “amazing” announcement, a pre-recorded applause is played, leading us to believe that Fusion Garage is trying to have us think that this presentation is taking place in a room full of viewers. Of course in reality its VERY obvious that there’s likely a couple of people running cameras, Rathakrishnan, that fake TabCo CEO, and a couple other people in the room to run the lights.

Rathakrishnan attempts to speak on this point almost immediately by saying “I’m confident I’m sure, but I’m not insane,” noting how the first Fusion Garage tablet was much less than a hit, and that if he’d come forth with another Fusion Garage tablet without promoting it like a brand new product, (with TabCo,) he’d never be taken seriously – his new tablet would not be given a fair chance.

Before we continue, I’d like to direct you to our two posts on the main products of this event: Grid 10, a 10-inch tablet with a dual-core processor, and the Grid 4, a smartphone with a 4-inch screen running the same Grid OS as the tablet.

Check out the “Product Final” videos for both the tablet and the phone here:

Certainly enticing looking devices when you consider the preview videos. Rathakrishnan notes that Grid OS is built on the Android kernel, making sure to note several times that this is not a rebuild of Android, but a wholly new look at how mobile OS can function. What we’re seeing, on the other hand, is an operating system that could, given a few weeks work by the ravenous teams of developers at a place like XDA, could be replicated on top of Android relatively easily.

After presenting several elements inside the tablet and showing off the tablet in short by holding a possibly final version of the tablet aloft on stage, Rathakrishnan noted that they had one more thing to reveal. I don’t need to remind you what this reminded everyone who was watching of: Apple’s classic “one more thing” process of revealing devices and services in their own always-classic keynotes. That one more thing was the Grid 4, a 4-inch smartphone that would be released Q4 of 2011.

Nearing the end of the presentation portion of this obviously pre-recorded video, we see a flash at the bottom of the screen prompting us to send in questions about the tablet, the phone, and/or the operating system. At the end of the presentation by Rathakrishnan, he’s asked questions as, again supposedly, sent in via email, each of them extremely well placed, none of them coming from a publisher, and each of them with an answer well rehearsed by Rathakrishnan.

One of the questions asks how Fusion Garage plans on competing with the iPad given the fact that they’d already thrown down the gauntlet with their TabCo ad campaign. Rathakrishnan responds by saying they never meant to go after Apple specifically (except they obviously DID with some airplanes sky-writing “forget the fruit” this spring) and that they recognize that Apple “will always be the dominant player in the short term.” How on Earth a group can “always” be the dominant player at the same time as only being the dominant player “in the short term” is beyond me.

Another question addressed the Android situation, asking why Fusion Garage would make a brand new OS when Android was already so popular. Rathakrishnan answers with a comment that would have had people walking out of the room had there been anyone there in the first place:

“I’m not sure Android is popular.”

Rathakrishnan justifies this unsureness by noting that there are many different devices running Android, each of them running a different version of Android and not having many hardware differences between the lot of them.

Again I must remind those of you not lucky enough to have caught this anti-masterpiece for yourselves, every 5 to 10 minutes we’d been treated to another pre-recorded round of excited applause after Rathakrishnan revealed a new element in the Grid ecosystem. Those of us who have been watching television for a good portion of our lives know a real live applause when we hear it – and this was not that.

The cameras were not trained on the elements we should have been seeing on the screen as they were presented throughout, a whole mess of factoids on the screen were lost as Rathakrishnan smoked through his nervously-presented speech, and the overall message was lost when, at the end of the presentation, I and we found ourselves with a whole lot of glitz but not a whole lot of guarantee of anything, be it hardware quality, trust in the Fusion Garage brand, or the ability of Grid to work in any every-day situation.

In other words, the design group responsible for the TabCo campaign did too good a job promoting what appears for now to be a dead on arrival set of devices and operating system from Fusion Garage. This is a letdown for everyone who has thus far partnered with Fusion Garage on the project and I hope for THEIR sakes that these devices turn out to be much more than what we’ve been presented here today.

There’s also a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED flash, capable of 720p HD video recording, along with a front-facing 0.3-megapixel camera. The 122.4 x 63.9 x 9.6 mm, 137g handset has 16GB of onboard storage, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and triband HSPA.

GPS/A-GPS, an accelerometer, ambient light sensor and a digital compass, along with a microUSB port and a microSD card slot round out the main specs. An optional USB Host adapter will be offered too.

The Grid 4 will be sold as an unlocked device, priced at $399 unlocked and SIM-free, as well as through an operator as yet unspecified; given we saw the Grid 10 clear the FCC with AT&T 3G, we wouldn’t be surprised if AT&T were looking at the Grid 4 too. It’s expected to ship in Q4 2011, though you can pre-register for interest now.

“We love the iPad, but other than that… a whole lot of samesies” TabCo’s faux CEO suggested, and Rathakrishnan carried on that theme by accusing Android devices of copying rather than innovating. Grid – the name of the OS as well as the tablet – is no skin, he insists, but a legitimately new platform, with social built in and the promise of “seamless state” so as to be able to pick up and leave off multimedia content between the slate and the Grid 4 smartphone Fusion Garage also announced.

Google search is out, replaced by Bing, and the Grid 10 runs on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor with a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 display. Amazon’s Appstore is loaded, but Fusion Garage has the Grid Shop that will distribute software using the company’s own Grid-specific APIs. The “Grid Desktop” works with GridFrames, Fusion Garage’s own productivity suite with word processing, spreadsheet and presentation support.

The Grid-layout homescreen consists of various “clusters” of apps, which can be collapsed into a single square, and using a grid-map to show an overview of whole desktop. Unlocking the device involves signing your name with your finger. There’s a chromeless-browser and a new email app which can show messages in a traditional three-pane layout or by pulling important messages out as tiles.

Specs for the 122.4 x 63.9 x 9.6 mm, 690g tablet include 512MB of RAM, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, two 0.5W speakers, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, GPS/AGPS and a digital compass, along with 16GB of integrated storage and a microSD card slot. The combo docking port will support USB and HDMI, and Fusion Garage will offer HDMI and USB Host adapters for it. The 3G model will have quadband HSPA, though carrier partner is unannounced; seeing as the model we saw at the FCC had AT&T support, though, that’s a pretty big clue.

To try to curry some early favor, Fusion Garage will be giving a Grid 10 to each JooJoo buyer; they should be getting emails about the offer very soon. The Grid 10 will ship on September 15 – pre-orders begin today – priced at $499 for the WiFi model or $599 for the WiFi + 3G version.

Fusion Garage confirmed back in November last year that it was abandoning its original JooJoo slate, and instead looking to Android for its successor. The company has missed its original launch goal, however; the plan had originally been to get the new JooJoo on the market in the first half of 2011.

This new “JooJoo 2″, then, looks set to follow other Android tablets we’ve seen in recent months. The name given in the FCC testing is “Grid10″ which could imply a 10-inch display, rather than the 12-inch panel of the original JooJoo. Meanwhile, the UMTS band II and V support (as well as quadband GSM/EDGE) implies use on AT&T’s 3G network in the US.

There’s no indication of what chipset Fusion Garage may have used, though we wouldn’t be surprised if the NVIDIA Tegra 2 was inside the slate. The company developed a custom UI for its open-source OS on the original JooJoo, though whether that will be carried over to this presumably Android model is a mystery.

[via Netbook News]

Meanwhile alternative operating systems are also being explored. While the JooJoo currently runs a custom Linux OS, reselleres “are expected to utilize alternative operating systems such as Linux and Microsoft Windows.”

The current JooJoo will be removed from direct-to-consumer sale on November 19, and the next-gen line of tablets will neither use the brand name nor be backward-compatible. “We have learned a lot and will carry forward insight gained from joojoo to our new generation of products” CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan claims, though the company will continue to support the first-gen device.

[via BGR]

Press Release:

FUSION GARAGE EXPANDS SALES CHANNELS FOR TOUCH-SCREEN TABLET DEVICES

Company Signs Vertical Market Reseller Agreement for joojoo with Osaka, Japan-Based ASTEC Co. Ltd.; ASTEC to Customize joojoo for Business Applications

SINGAPORE–(11/18/10)–Fusion Garage, a designer and developer of touch-screen computing devices, today announced it has expanded distribution channels via a vertical market reseller agreement with Osaka, Japan-based ASTEC Co. Ltd. Through the agreement, ASTEC will customize Fusion Garage’s first generation Internet tablet, joojoo, for corporate applications. Fusion Garage will upgrade Joojoo’s internal storage capabilities to 16 gigabytes and ASTEC will customize joojoo’s operating system for business applications. Resellers, such as ASTEC, are expected to utilize alternative operating systems such as Linux and Microsoft Windows in joojoo.

Fusion Garage is also in discussions with other resellers and systems integrators to distribute joojoo in vertical markets such as medical, transportation, logistics and others that take advantage of its 12.1 inch form factor. The growing interest from vertical market resellers is anticipated to consume the remaining Joojoo inventory by the end of this year. As a result, Joojoo will no longer be available for direct-to-consumer sale via the Fusion Garage website as of November 19 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST). Fusion Garage remains committed to its joojoo customers and will continue support the device. Additional information on customer support will be available in the coming weeks.

Simultaneously, Fusion Garage has announced plans for a next generation product line which will include a new operating system built in part on Google’s Android OS. The new Fusion Garage products will not be backwardly compatible with joojoo nor will they carry the joojoo brand name. Those products are expected to reach market in the first half of 2011.

“We are very pleased by the rapidly increasing vertical market interest in joojoo,” said Fusion Garage founder and CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan. “Companies such as ASTEC are able to do some very innovative customization of the product and enable joojoo to be used in business applications that go beyond our consumer focus. At the same time, this marks the end of joojoo as a product and a brand for Fusion Garage. We have learned a lot and will carry forward insight gained from joojoo to our new generation of products that we will introduce in the first half of 2011.”

For instance, the company intends to pull all messaging services – such as Gmail, Facebook messages and other accounts – into a single interface, rather than leaving the user hopping between various apps.  The second-gen JooJoo will be the first of a new range of devices, replacing the original slate.

As for the ongoing legal battle, Fusion Garage claims it’s having little effect on their daily operations.  Sales, meanwhile, are supposedly “lower than expected” but reasonable in Europe and Asia.  Still no publicly released numbers, however.

[via Android Community]

“We are still actively making changes to the joojoo software. We will make the source release available once we feel we are ready to do so and also having the resources to get this sorted out and organized for publication. We seek your kind understanding on our position and appreciate your patience on this. Thank you.” JooJoo support team, Fusion Garage

As for the hardware, Garrett suggests it’s a case of ambition without sufficient technical skills to back it up, and highlights things like the display being connected upside down (so apps have to be rotated before they can be shown) and components simply being glued to a basic NVIDIA reference board.  Of course, there are some happy users out there and some disappointed ones; the real issue is Fusion Garage apparently not taking software licensing seriously.  They’re certainly not the first company to fall short in that respect, but if you’re hoping developers will jump on board – and even help out spotting flaws in your code – then this isn’t the way to go about it.

[Thanks Si!]

There isn’t much information to go on here, but we don’t imagine that there necessarily should be, either. As you can see from the image, that’s definitely Mac OS X running on a JooJoo. So obviously if Windows 7 isn’t your thing, you now have some options. Thanks to the Fusion Garage tablet’s Atom processor, it makes it perfectly compatible with Apple’s Snow Leopard Operating System.

We’re not exactly sure why anyone would do this, unless they were just really bored, but we do have to say: it makes the JooJoo a bit more attractive. Now that we have Snow Leopard on there, we can’t wait to see what’s next. Anyone have any ideas?

[via MacStories]

Video demo after the cut

As you might expect, not everything is working smoothly at this early stage.  The touchscreen works – recognizing two points of multitouch contact – and WiFi and Bluetooth both play nicely, but integrated 3G isn’t up and running yet and neither is the accelerometer.  The 1.3-megapixel camera works, as does suspending the system, and Windows 7 is reporting around 3.5hrs runtime from the standard battery.

According to fellow JooJoo owner xetra, who loaded up Windows 7 Home with the touch pack, the “system is very fast”.  Of course, with only 4GB of SSD storage to play with – and around 1GB left after the OS has its way – this probably isn’t a netbook replacement unless you’re willing to rely mostly on the cloud for your files.

[via EEE-PC.de]

While Flash support is apparently better, the accelerometer remains a frustration; it’s prone to lag or even freezing in one orientation and refusing to change.  We’ll have to wait until a full re-review of the hardware to see quite how good a challenge the JooJoo now presents, but ironically it may be what the tablet doesn’t come with that gives it a foot in the door: Fusion Garage reckon that they’ve heard a surprising amount of critique for Apple’s policies – whether their App Store guidelines, or their general restrictions on things like multitasking – which of course works in the JooJoo’s favor.

According to Rathakrishnan, there’s two big extras coming. The first, and perhaps most notably (considering you’ll have to buy another model, if you were one of the 64 to buy the first, we mean), is the confirmation that there will be a JooJoo with 3G connectivity. And, best of all, it’s apparently coming in a matter of only 3 months. So, if you were waiting for 3G, there you go. At least you know it’s coming. Eventually.

As for the other big change, the company is going to allow for USB mass storage, thanks to unlocking the USB port on the tablet. This would indeed make it stand out from the competition, but not necessarily push it ahead of the pack. And, considering the iPad WiFi + 3G iPad is available today, we’d imagine that has a bit of a jump on the situation. Though, if the HP Slate is dead (or not), along with the Courier from Microsoft’s demise, maybe the JooJoo just got a little boost. Or not. Your call.

[via Ubergizmo]

“We are in the midst of bad joojoo for a very simple reason: We were aggressive in our product delivery commitments, decided to completely revise our UI as we were readying the product for release and our initial units shipped with software that proved to be problematic when put to the test in the real world.” Chandra Rathakrishnan, Fusion Garage

The new software – which, it’s promised, will be released “shortly” – will apparently address most of the issues initial reviews picked up on.  That will include the ability to play full-screen HD video.

As for comparisons with the iPad, according to Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan”we may be ambitious but we are not delusional” and they have no plans to position themselves as an “iPad killer”.  Frankly we’re just surprised to see a gadget that works out cheaper in the UK and Europe than its US price.

[via Blogeee]

UneasySilence got their hands on a Fusion Garage email asking customers for feedback on the tablet, but the support staff responsible for writing it used the “To:” field rather than the “BCC:” one.  That mean that all the owners could see each other’s addresses (blanked out for privacy’s sake in the image above) and, more importantly, they could be counted.

The grand total is 64, which – if that’s the sum total of JooJoo sales – would make for a particularly depressing launch.  Of course, this could only be a partial list, but UneasySilence say they’ve had separate confirmation from another tipster that the figure is accurate.

[via Twitter]

Fusion Garage announced late last month that the JooJoo was (finally) shipping to preorder customers, though there was speculation about exactly how big a group of people that actually was.  The whole project has been laced with difficulty; the company initially partnered with TechCrunch to product the so-called CrunchPad, but the relationship broke down and resulted in ongoing legal spats.

Engadget are promising a full review once they’ve had a chance to play with the JooJoo a little, a move which is already whipping up their comments section into a frenzy (so much so, in fact, that they’ve turned them off).  To be honest, while iPad-Eve isn’t maybe the best time to get your gadget out there, it’s perfect if you want to go head to head on functionality with what’s likely to be the biggest attention-guzzler of the moment, the iPad.

According to some public documents, it looks like there was only 90 pre-orders made. And yes, if you’re assuming that the majority of sales are made in the initial shipments, you’d probably be right. With only 90 pre-orders, it doesn’t look like the JooJoo is going to really go anywhere. We might even say that the device is Dead On Arrival (DOA). If that’s not bad enough, there was 15 of the devices actually returned. We imagine that may have something to do with the slow release, and delays, and whatever else that may shy people away from the product.

However, that’s not stopping Fusion Garage from preaching that things are going well. According to the company, the number of models that have shipped are sitting in Los Angeles right now, held up by some nonsense in Customs. But, it looks like Fusion Garage is trying to get those devices into people’s hands by April 1st — at the longest, April 2nd. We understand that the company is trying to salvage their name, but it may be too late for that. With only 90 models pre-ordered, it looks like people may not have even cared enough from the first place. Did any of you out there pre-order it? If so, did you cancel, or are you still patiently waiting to get your very own JooJoo?

[via Engadget]

First and foremost, we’ve got the NVIDIA Ion combined with Intel’s Atom N270. Second, despite the fact we’ve heard from Fusion Garage themselves that the Joo Joo won’t be shipping at the end of March with 3G on board, the FCC reveals that there is indeed a 3G card in there, so maybe something is changing. However, while we love the combination of Ion and the Atom N270, we have to admit that we’re not really sure the battery life is going to be anything to write home about. While the Joo Joo’s main competition is primed at a 10 hour battery life, there’s some speculation going around that the Joo Joo will barely make 5.

It’s going to just be a few short weeks before Fusion Garage unleashes their tablet, so before long we’ll be able to give you all the gory details, instead of banking on FCC documentation. Though, after seeing the upgraded User Interface and knowing that an application store of some sort is shipping with the fully HD-capable tablet makes our hearts flutter a bit. Essentially, we just can’t wait to get our hands on a new gadget.

[via Engadget]

The startup has replaced the formerly-spartan interface with a much more modernized grid look that includes customizable wallpaper and a translucent bar that combines both status and a web address field. Engadget reports “Scroll behavior has been revised as well, with two separate behaviors: a two-finger scroll that works like a scroll wheel, and a single finger “pan” that works like a mouse arrow. That’s so you can move around sites like Google Maps, which have different interface elements mapped to each control — CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan pointed out to us that devices like the iPhone avoid the issue by using dedicated apps, but Fusion Garage wants to deliver the “full web experience.”  Interesting thinking here.

The text-input has also been revamped, with a smaller keyboard designed for one-hand usage that can be moved around the screen so it won’t obscure content that might otherwise be blocked out, and a full-screen multitouch keyboard that does “chording so it recognizes more than one key at a time”.  Flash now has reportedly become “fully-working” and viewing YouTube videos is supported either through Flash or a dedicated viewer that can play H.264 videos and other formats, and will also do supported range of codecs from a USB flash drive.  Apparently, if you really had wanted the black version, Fusion Garage will refund you back your $499 preorder.  Champagne or black JooJoo tablet, I for one won’t be complaining, as long as it actually ships next month, fingers crossed.

Apparently the issue involved touch sensitivity of the 12.1 inch capacitive touch screen, which Fusion Garage calls an “industry first”, and which the company has been able to identify and resolve, at the expense of another month in delay.  The company will be providing a free JooJoo accessory to pre-order customers to take the edge off the situation.  Hey, it’s still coming out long before, you know, the other tablet.

FUSION GARAGE TO SHIP JOOJOO INTERNET TABLET ON MARCH 25

SINGAPORE — February 26, 2010 — Earlier this month, Fusion Garage’s JooJoo Internet tablet went into full production with an anticipated on-time delivery to consumers at the end of February. Last week, the company became aware of a manufacturing issue involving JooJoo’s industry-first 12.1 inch capacitive touch screen which Fusion Garage was quickly able to diagnose and rectify. The company now forecasts the JooJoo will be sent to consumers on March 25.

The manufacturing issue centers on fine tuning the touch sensitivity of the capacitive screen. Fusion Garage will be providing all pre-order customers with a free JooJoo accessory to compensate for the delay in the delivery of their JooJoo.

Fusion Garage’s recent agreement with CSL, its manufacturing partner, has eliminated nearly all of the manufacturing costs associated with JooJoo. The company has no other barriers in the way of product delivery in the new timeframe.

The company apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the delay.

Fusion Garage CEO Chandra revealed that they’ve teamed up with Malaysia’s largest OEM, CSL Group, to cover the tablet manufacturing costs; in return CSL will get a slice of the revenue pie.  And read this, it’s confirmed that the tablet will feature full Flash support at launch, and even HD Flash content once Flash 10.1 is released.

The other thing?  A web app store is in the works, Chandra claiming “We have a bigger ‘app store’ than Apple because we have the full Internet,”.  Apparently JooJoo means along the lines of “magical” in African – which is how Steve Jobs exactly described the iPad.  And they cost the same at $499 each.  The JooJoo may have a larger 12-inch screen compared to the iPad’s 9.7-incher, but who knows what Apple may concoct up – something larger, and even more “magical”?

FUSION GARAGE MOVES INTO FULL PRODUCTION OF BREAKTHROUGH JOOJOO Tablet
Innovative Manufacturing Agreement and Investment from CSL Group Helps
Reinvent Consumer Electronics Business Model

SINGAPORE, February 3, 2010 – Fusion Garage today announced that its category-creating JooJoo Internet tablet has moved into full production with initial shipments expected to reach consumers at the end of February. Helping fuel the JooJoo’s arrival and Fusion Garage’s next phase of corporate growth is an innovative manufacturing agreement and strategic investment from mobile device OEM and distribution giant CSL Group of Malaysia.

Fusion Garage is expected to announce a second round of investment within the next two weeks which would augment today’s investment from CSL and the company’s initial round secured in November 2009.
CSL, established in 1998, has rapidly grown to a major conglomerate, with sales of nearly $300M USD, and the organization is one of the largest manufacturers of cell phones, mobile devices, netbook and notebook computers in SE Asia.

The strategic relationship between the companies calls for CSL to absorb all up front manufacturing costs associated with JooJoo production. This agreement virtually eliminates the normal high cost of mass market entry – often in the tens of millions – for any emerging Consumer Electronics (CE) hardware developer. In exchange, CSL will receive a revenue royalty from each JooJoo sold globally. Additionally, CSL has made a strategic venture investment in Fusion Garage which will help the company to move to the next phase of its corporate growth and product development.

“This is landscape changing manufacturing agreement in the CE hardware market in much the same way Dell changed the PC business model with its direct to consumer sales approach back in the 1990s,” said Fusion Garage founder and CEO, Chandrasekar (Chandra) Rathakrishnan. “CSL’s confidence in JooJoo and strategic investment enables us to concentrate on the expansion of our organization, software development and, ultimately, building a world class CE company.”

“We are justifiably bullish – not only on the promise of the JooJoo and the Internet tablet market’s potential but also on Fusion Garage’s forward looking vision,” said Dato Eric Chuah, Chairman of the CSL Group of Companies. “We have an opportunity to expand our business via this relationship, enter a hot market with a trusted partner and turn the traditional CE hardware manufacturing model on its head. We are betting on volume here and firmly believe our bet will be a winner.”

About JooJoo
JooJoo, officially introduced in December 2009, is the category-creating Web tablet that provides near instantaneous Internet access and the best online experience. The African word “joujou” means magical object and Fusion Garage’s JooJoo brings users into an online world where everything on the Internet is just a single touch away. Powered by Fusion Garage’s innovative browser-based operating system, JooJoo enables users to quickly and easily tap into Internet applications, news, music, high definition video, social media and web services. JooJoo has revolutionary hardware, including the largest capacitive touch screen of any device on the market – 12.1 inches –providing full screen content viewing. Its ultra-portable, ultra-thin design offers the best Internet experience anywhere – on the couch or on the go, standing or sitting. JooJoo’s gesture-based user interface allows easy transitions between Websites and turns pages in a digital publication via the movement of a finger. A full-size touch keyboard appears when users need it, and disappears when viewing content or paging through digital content. JooJoo is available directly from Fusion Garage at www.thejoojoo.com.

About Fusion Garage
Fusion Garage enables the best Internet experience through innovative software and hardware devices. Founded in 2008, Fusion Garage’s core browser-based operating system provides near instantaneous Internet access and has spurred the development of an entirely new category of consumer electronics devices dedicated to online usage. Fusion Garage is based in Singapore and is privately funded.

As for the speculation regarding the manufacturing deal with Pegatron, Fusion Garage claim that relationship was a failure not helped by the fact that “Arrington’s promises of hardware development support proved to be hollow”.  They’ve now moved to a different ODM and a different design, they claim, and one to which Pegatron hold no IP rights.

The full statements are in the gallery below, but one thing is clear – neither side of this battle seem likely to back down.  Preorders for the JooJoo are being taken already, priced at $499, and the device is expected – according to Fusion Garage – to begin shipping early in the new year.

[via Gizmodo]

He also addresses some of Fusion Garage CEO Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan’s statements during the JooJoo webcast earlier this week, in which his former friend claimed TechCrunch has no IP claim for the touchscreen tablet.  In actual fact, Arrington counters, he personally created “the entire blueprint” of the CrunchPad, while Pegatron own “much of the key intellectual property, including the board and much of the mechanicals”.

“The entire blueprint of the device was created by me. And we also have hired direct resources, including the former head of hardware at Vudu, as well as very high level software engineers, who have worked directly on the project here and in Singapore with the Fusion Garage team. Their direct work on the project was crucial to its success, and the device would not be finished without their work” Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

Arrington believes Fusion Garage may have given Pegatron’s IP to a new ODM manufacturing partner – the two companies are not collaborating on manufacturing of the JooJoo.  The likelihood of the JooJoo – which is meant to go up for pre-sales today, priced at $499 and with initial deliveries in 4-8 weeks – reaching customers’ hands seems ever more unlikely.

JooJoo weighs in at 1.1kg and will go sale on Friday December 11th.  Contrary to the original $300 tipped price tag, Fusion Garage say it will come in at $499. Initial deliveries will begin in 8-10 weeks.

Full hardware details are not known; however going by the image on the JooJoo site the slate will have a microphone, headphone and power port, together with a memory card slot.  Inside there’s WiFi but no 3G, and the whole thing can boot up – direct to a web browser – in 9 seconds.  As for the threat of litigation from TechCrunch, Rathakrishnan says his company is not worried, and that so far there has been no legal action taken.