macnn/electronista
03/01/2008, 5:05pm, EST
Saturday, March 1sti-Mate shuts down main US business
i-Mate's office in Redmond, Washington has been almost completely dissolved, with the company laying off almost its entire workforce, while others left on their own volition. According to Engadget, the Dubai-based company ran into problems with US distribution of its Ultimate line of communication devices. This led to i-Mate laying off almost its entire US operations team, including the engineering, quality assurance, and technical writing departments.
The company will still sell unlocked product through a US web portal, which the former sales director has supposedly agreed to run.
The closure comes shortly after i-Mate had refreshed the Ultimate line of products with HSUPA internet connectivity on February 12th, which evidently wasn't enough to sustain the company.
Filed under: industry, peripherals
Other story tags: distribution, i-mate, closure, lay offs
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Too bad for the employees, apparently. It's good that someone has agreed to maintain contact with the company's existing customer base, but sadly, it's a sales person. The only way "the name" could redeem itself is through a strong connection with the developer community, and an undying love of the project by its final representative. That's a staggeringly up-hill struggle for capital and buy-in just waiting to happen.
Perhaps a strategic partnership from the copy-write/trademark/patent holders with a Skype or other marginally interested relevant party is the only real avenue...
Good luck on providing a robust user experience regardless of the user's computer platform choice.
So YOU pay attention. The owners of macnn are driving traffic to their non-mac site, on non-mac articles....and quit trying to make the world upside, people have a right to complain about it.
no pun intended.