.FLYINGHEAD INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
.TITLE Let’s play taps for Tapwave
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY
.OTHER Tapwave, maker of the gaming-related Palm OS handheld Zodiac has announced that they’re no longer building or supporting the device. What went wrong. This Computing Unplugged analysis takes a look at the issues.
So, is Tapwave dead, or not?
For those of you who don’t follow the obscure Palm OS licensee business, this might not make sense, so let’s go do a recap before we do our requiem.
Tapwave is (or was) the company that created the Zodiac handheld, an interesting if flawed Palm OS handheld aimed at gamers. We reviewed the Zodiac back in August of 2004 and originally gave it four stars. However, we did a Six Months Later review in January of this year and we then dropped our rating down to three stars due to the widely prevalent problems with the product’s reliability and support.
At first glance, the Zodiac was a sweet device. It had a wide, beautiful 320×480 screen, two SD-card slots, 128M of RAM and an actual ATI video chip. It also had a thumb-pad and an analog stick for gaming.
.BREAK_EMAIL For the whole sordid story, tap here and learn how Tapwave got tapped out.
Even from the beginning, Tapwave was plagued with problems. Unfortunately, most of them seemed to be strategic. When we first began looking at the Zodiac, we asked a number of tough questions of Tapwave’s founders:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Palm "clone" products like those from HandEra and even Sony haven’t faired all that well over the years. What makes you think Tapwave doesn’t share that same dire fate?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Isn’t nearly $500 for a gaming machine too high for the mass market?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Assuming your previous answer includes the phrase "it wasn’t intended for the mass market," then how can game developers justify the time and effort to specially develop games for your platform? In fact, even if the Zodiac products were intended for the mass market, given the small penetration of such boutique products, how can game developers justify the investment?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Instead of two SD slots, and given the price, wouldn’t it have made sense to stick in a little hard drive like in the iPod or iPod mini? Or, alternatively, included a CF slot like the Axim, so users could add their own drives?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Why should someone buy a Zodiac instead of a Zire 72? Is the joystick really worth an extra few hundred dollars?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET We understand from our readers that your technical support, in a word, sucks. Care to comment?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET While you’re commenting, how do you respond to the charge that your company, like many others, is off-shoring jobs Americans need here at home while, at the same time, reducing the quality of service and the degree of owner satisfaction?
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Given the short lives of other Palm cloners, how can you assure prospective buyers that they won’t be left with a very expensive, unsupported paperweight in three years?
.END_LIST
Although we pursued these questions for quite some time, hoping to be able to give our readers some reassurances, the only answer we got back came from Byron Connell, Founder and Senior Marketing VP of Tapwave:
.QUOTE We are a startup trying to push the boundaries, leverage the Palm OS in new and creative ways and establish a new category of products…this is no easy undertaking and this type of Q&A certainly does not help the cause.
Unfortunately, our questions proved prescient. Tapwave was plagued with reliability problems. Our own Senior Editor, James Booth, had to have his unit replaced five times before he finally got one that ran. He was fortunate, in that he was able to go to Tapwave’s senior management for support.
Regular purchasers of this device were far less fortunate. We’ve had report after report of similar reliability problems. Those purchasers, though, were forced to speak with poorly trained support representatives, working outside the U.S., with an almost non-existent grasp of the English language.
Here’s where Tapwave’s woes began to catch up with them. First, they had a product priced at double their most obvious competitor: the PlayStation Portable. If they were selling the device as a gaming machine (and when it comes with an analog joystick, you know that’s the intent), then there was no way they’d be able to hold their own against the assault that’s Sony’s marketing machine.
Then, they had poor quality control and even worse customer service. So while their product originally attracted a cult following, word of mouth served to drive buyers away, rather than toward the product.
This approach to customer support is symptomatic of a very 1990s style of technology business. During the so-called "boom years," we saw arrogant venture-funded company after arrogant venture-funded company, each of them collapsing once the cash ran out. Back in those heady times, customers didn’t really matter. The suckers had cash and they’d buy the product anyway, whether or not there was good support.
But in a time when discretionary spending is up to the customers’ discretion, and when spare cash is short enough that a real, considered decision must be made before spending half-a-grand on a gaming handheld, disregard of customers is a death sentence.
And that brings us back to the original question, "So, is Tapwave dead, or not?"
The reason we ask this question is that Tapwave’s Web site is particularly unclear. If you go to their site, the following statement is displayed:
.QUOTE We are sorry to inform you that the Zodiac business was discontinued and service and support are no longer available as of July 25th 2005.
.QUOTE We thank you for your past interest and support and apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. If you have an outstanding claim with the company, Ueker and Associates will be contacting you shortly.
You’ll notice that the company does not explicitly say that Tapwave is closed, but rather the "Zodiac business was discontinued." If this is the case and the company does continue to operate but is simply abandoning support for its customer base, we’d be very disturbed.
At first glance, that might appear to be the case, especially if you factor in a comment made by Founder Connell in April on the Tapland Web site:
.QUOTE Tapwave is starting to transition from offering Tapwave branded retail products to developing new co-branded products for OEM partners (i.e., other leading consumer electronic companies).
.QUOTE These partners will be introducing future multimedia products based on both the Zodiac technology platform and Tapwave’s next generation technologies. This approach allows us to leverage other company’s brands, distribution, marketing funds and geographic expertise.
.QUOTE Some of these partner companies are interested in delivering a next generation gaming experience, but most (with the arrival of Sony PSP) are really focused on working with us to create other mobile solutions — e.g., rich multimedia, navigation and communication. Of course, you can see this business transition starting to happen in UK as we speak.
.QUOTE This was planned. To facilitate the move to a new OEM business model, Tapwave is also working with Dixons and other UK resellers to manage this transition. Customers are likely to find some good deals in the process and will of course continue to receive great support, etc.
Despite these two unclear statements from Tapwave, we now believe that Tapwave is defunct, even though we’ve yet to find any court records detailing a bankruptcy filing. If you recall the company’s Web site obituary, there’s a sentence, "If you have an outstanding claim with the company, Ueker and Associates will be contacting you shortly."
Ueker and Associates is a liquidation firm, specializing in cleaning up messes after a company fails or goes into bankruptcy. According to their Web site, Susan Ueker "Is an experienced professional in the specialized areas of Receivership, Trusteeship, Chapter 11 Plan Administration and Assignment For the Benefit of Creditors as they relate to business operations, real estate management and the sale of assets."
Further information has not been particularly forthcoming. The Tapwave main phone line rings and rings, with no answer. We’ve left messages with Rocketshop, Tapwave’s PR firm, requesting details. Calls have not been returned. Susan Ueker, the liquidation specialist, declined to speak with us.
.BEGIN_KEEP
The bottom line is quite simple. It looks like if you own a Tapwave Zodiac, you’re on your own.
.H1 Other news
In further bizarre Palm-related news, Palm is now Palm again. The company which has gone through more name changes than the Artist Formerly Known As changed its name last year from Palm, Inc. to palmOne and is now, effective this week, simply known as "Palm".
Who knew there could be this much intrigue in the handheld computer market?
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
To read our article "Computing Unplugged reviews the Tapwave Zodiac," visit http://www.computingunplugged.com/issues/issue200408/00001348001.html
To read our article "Six months later with the Tapwave Zodiac," visit http://www.computingunplugged.com/issues/issue200501/00001439001.html.
Tapwave’s rather deserted home page is located at http://www.tapwave.com.
For more information on Tapland, visit http://www.tapland.com.
For more information on Ueker Associates, visit http://www.ueckerassoc.com. If you have a claim against Tapwave, here’s Ueker’s address and phone information:
Uecker & Associates, Inc.
100 Pine Street, Suite 475
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: (415) 362-3440
Facsimile: (415) 362-7704
To learn more about what a liquidation specialist does, visit http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2001/09/03/focus2.html.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.END_KEEP
