Comments on: What hardware companies should know about Kickstarter

By: MikeyMike

MikeyMike — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 06:53:10 +0000

Saw XI3 at CES and have followed them a little bit They have an interesting concept, but from the looks of things they lack the funding to get any traction with this thing. I’m surprised because I think it’s a swell product and you hear all this talk about all the VC money going away from the consumer internet toward technology. If I could suggest one thing to them it would be this: Stop undermining your most important vendors by allowing a bunch of dropshippers to carry your stuff. I’ve been thinking of buying one of these and when I did a search on google shopping, 25+ online stores are carrying your stuff, but I’ll bet none of them stock it. Why feed a bunch of parasites? It looks like you’re liquidating. Your website stinks. There are a lot of very cool possibilities for your products, but you have to read between the lines on your site to figure out what they are. Even tech savvy people have a hard time figuring out what to do with XI3. Tell ‘em. You gotta do more than fire off press releases and resorting to gimmicks like Kickstarter.

By: Jay Nichols

Jay Nichols — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:42:12 +0000

I’ve already heard of a number of firms that are planning on using the Kickstarter method, but bypassing Kickstarter the site – just creating their own and then driving traffic to it. Anybody seen a company take this route successfully?

By: cliff

cliff — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:59:36 +0000

You are writing as if there is something to lose by not getting funded on kickstarter. You lose nothing, mind as well give it a shot.

By: David Politis

David Politis — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 00:42:22 +0000

Perhaps you missed the specs for both the X7A & the X3A Modular Computer, realljjj, but both sets are published within our Kickstarter Project.

The specs for the X7A Modular Computer are found here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/262476727/xi3-help-us-usher-in-the-post-pc-era/posts/321923; while the specs for the X3A Modular Computer are found here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/262476727/xi3-help-us-usher-in-the-post-pc-era/posts/322184.

Hope that helps.

Dave Politis, Xi3 Corporation

By: realjjj

realjjj — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:36:28 +0000

Adapteva and Xi3 are both bad examples since they made fundamental mistakes.
Xi3 costs way too much (nobody sane would pay 1k$ for a Trinity/Llano PC – not even sure what they are using,or if desktop or notebook parts) and they failed to even provide proper specs.
Adapteva doesn’t have at least 1 application already developed that would appeal to a large number of users (or if they do have it they aren’t pushing it). What is the average Joe gonna do with the chip once he gets it (at a reasonable price)?Wait and hope that maybe someone, sometime soon,makes something he can use?
Both companies failed to sell their product , KS might not be a store but folks will always look at it that way and buy what they can use at a decent price and you can’t just go there utterly unprepared.