Digital Home Thoughts: OQO Facing Cash Crisis, Might Shut Down

"OQO will be shutting its doors before shipping the OQO Model 2+ according to industry sources. Bob Rosin, OQO's SVP of sales and marketing, told the Wall Street Journal that the company is facing a cash crunch, has reduced work hours and is actively looking for a buyer. We're fans of OQO and really hope the situation improves, but things are looking grim. Apparently the company is virtually out of cash and the company will not say when the Model 2+ will ship. There's an estimated ship date of May 2009 listed on the Model 2+ product page, but the WSJ article points out that the target will most likely be missed."

The OQO has always been an interesting, if expensive, device. Their innovation in the hardware was impressive, but their devices always seemed to struggle to find a place in the market. I've heard the very smart Michael Gartenberg say that there's a market for 50,000 of anything and I feel like that's exactly the market that OQO was limited to. For some people, this is a dream device - the problem is, there's not enough of those people to keep a company like OQO going. The OQO 2+ is an impressive device - the 5-inch OLED screen is, simply put, stunning. The $999 price point isn't outrageous - but ask yourself how well Windows XP or Windows Vista works at 480 x 800 screen resolution. The answer is "not very".