OQO’s CEO takes off running
The CEO of one of the most innovative companies in the UMPC market has decided to leave his post. Dennis Moore, the now-former CEO of OQO has decided to jump ship. He’s leaving the company effective immediately, reportedly with the intention of starting his own company. No word on what his next venture might entail, but given the nature of modern non-compete agreements, we’re guessing it’s not going to be a direct rival to anything that OQO has to offer. The new head honcho at OQO will be Andy Popell, who is well acquainted with the OQO brand, as he was one of the original co-founders of the company. Let’s hope that this management shake-up leads to a quicker release of a new handheld machine, as our 02s are growing a bit long in the tooth.
Tags: andy popell, dennis moore, oqo
He’s probably creating a netbook company. I’d say he’s a little too late for that now though. He should of did it 6 months ago. By the time his new venture gets a product out to market, every computer manufacturer and their brother will have a netbook on the market.
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I think this Dennis guy spent more time blogging than actively running the company. I suspect he was forced out due to poor performance. The model 02 is an amazing product. I run a 64SSD with XP Pro and Sprint. It has served me well for 7 months. I love it and the only thing I would hope to see in the future is it being a bit lighter.
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Innovative? maybe 8 years ago when the revealed how small they could make a PC. The novelty wore off about the first year or less when people realized it had a thumb keyboard.
What they need to do is fix that problem and make it based around a touch type keyboard. If the new CEO can not realize it or is too stuborn due to being a cofounder of the original form factor then I guess I can see why Mr. Moore ran for greener pastures.
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Despite leaving the company, Dennis Moore is actually on record “Consider me an OQO “fanboy,” but I think you’ll be impressed and excited with their future products…” It’s hard to make the argument that he’s leaving because he didn’t like the product.
[Incidentally, he's also said that he's leaving to start a software company.]
BTW, if OQO is serious about making a Vista capable computer that you can use while walking, they may not attach as much importance to a touchtypable keyboard as other people. However, those other people probably aren’t concerned with getting a computer they can use while they’re walking. (AFAIK, very few people are.)
At some point, complaints about the OQO boil down to, “OMG, I hate this orange because it’s not a coconut.” So far anyway, it looks like there are enough OQO buyers for this argument to be not very useful.
It’s been clear for a while now that OQO buyers are companies that use them in vertically integrated applications, not end users. If that makes enough money for them, then it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.
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Vertically integrated companies? Business users have the same needs as everyone whom uses full Windows OS. We prefer a touch type keyboard. If they had a lot of vertical sales they surely would sell more than the 6000 to 15,000 a year they do currently. I base that on published sales a Spring SF Gate article posted divided by the various OQO prices of their models assuming people buy zero accessories. If they did buy accessories the numbers would be worse.
Get real with sales that weak they need to get their innovative hat on again and realize that after all these years with no big demand they have the form factor all wrong.
Here is my prediction, if they make a touch type keyboard version they will be huge and sucessful. If they continue with just internal tweeks and keep it the same form factor then by 2012 OQO will go bankrupt like Flipstart did this year if not sooner.
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OQO is a company created by geeky engineers with no clue about normal people and they thought they could sell to everyday people. Yet they have fallen flat on their face every year over and over with weak sales. They probably have pissed away all that venture fund not to mention have no other funds willing to extend them credit. Thus a larger company better buy them before they bite the dust.
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