technology news: Fewer than 700 Jolla Tablets will ever ship; 21,000 backers will eventually maybe get a refund

vendredi 29 janvier 2016

Fewer than 700 Jolla Tablets will ever ship; 21,000 backers will eventually maybe get a refund

Just 540 additional Jolla Tablets will be shipped out to backers of the original Indiegogo crowdsourced campaign, according to the Finnish manufacturer. All of the other backers will be offered refunds, but those users may not see their entire amount paid out for a year.

The original campaign in November 2014 generated over $2.5 million from 21,637 backers. However, Jolla later got his with financial issues that caused delays for the tablet. It uses the company's Sailfish OS 2.0, which can run both Android apps as well as ones made specifically for Sailfish.

Jolla said that in the fall of 2015 it shipped 121 units of the tablet, but continuing financial issues combined with supplier problems affected their plans . It stated this week:

We have been analyzing different alternatives regarding the Jolla Tablet project situation. But no matter how you come at it, the tight financial situation remains a major constraint and therefore a main driver of the solution. Furthermore, due to the delays in the latest financing round it has simply become too late to produce all the tablets for the project. The supplier no longer has the needed components and many of them are no longer available. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done now to change this.

The plan is to ship just 540 more units of the tablet to Indiegogo backers in February, which Jolla says it will "make every effort to fulfill according to the order in which contributions were made." All of the other backers will be offered refunds, with the process to begin sometime in February. It added:

Due to the financial constraints this will happen in two parts: half of t he refund will be done during Q1/2016, and the other half within a year, our financial situation permitting.

People who ordered the tablet directly from the Jolla Shop in the fall of 2015 will also get a refund.

Source: Jolla