OQO Hype Back In Fashion

Overhype

from the hellooooooo-vaporware dept

Ok, I lied. A few hours ago I wrote in the comments that I wasn’t going to write any more about the OQO device until an actual product was shipping. However, seeing BusinessWeek’s insane gushing over the company, it seemed reasonable to chime in. Remember, the OQO is up there on the list of vaporware products. The idea was to build a fully functional computer inside a portable box that was only a little bigger than a typical PDA. It was first announced more than two years ago, with specs and features it doesn’t seem to have these days. They promised it would be under $1,000 and would come with various “docking stations” like a laptop docking station that you could pop it into to turn the OQO into an immediate laptop, if that was needed. Now, they’re saying it’ll be $2,000 and there’s no talk of the docking stations. Of course, while OQO has been able to get all the hype, many other companies have been working on very similar devices, including Tiqit, IBM spin-off Antelope, and Paul Allen’s Flipstart. The one thing all of these systems have in common is you still can’t buy one. All of them have been working at offering such a device for years, and every few months there’s another flurry of news stories about them as if it’s some big new idea. Sure, they all of have funky prototypes (I even got to play around with the Tiqit device two years ago) that are very cool, and which I’m sure people would find quite useful – but until we can go out, plunk down our money, and get one of these tiny computers, can the press please lay off on the mushy stories about how wonderful they are?