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dicussions about Microsoft Smartphone and Pocket PC phone
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msmobiles.com_robot
Joined: 23 Mar 2004
Posts: 16777215
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 Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 5:16 pm Post subject: Reflections: Gizmondo today is no more |
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Formerly very flashy shop of Gizmondo located on the renown Regent street in London, UK (lame attempt to immitate Apple Corporation and their shop on the same street) is now in process of liquidation - similarly li...
Read more at http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/5131.html |
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peterw
Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Gizmondo was run by several people with Swedish Mafia connections. They never manufactured enough units to be remotely profitable, but that was never the intention. It was a share boost and dump operation. The gang behind it have now setup Xeromobile to repeat the business model with mobile phones |
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EJR
Joined: 18 Mar 2004
Posts: 2629
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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| peterw wrote: | | They never manufactured enough units to be remotely profitable, but that was never the intention. |
no, I think that they really tried to be profitable, but bad design decisions stood in the way |
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peterw
Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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Really?
Read some of the employees comments
http://www.gizmondoforums.com/forums/index.php?s=29026e37185a5fa78ec0274c1a6899fc&showforum=24
Todays Mail on Sunday, this is by no means a complet list of the things that went on
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Maxwell’s bid to save Gizmondo
MASSIVE DEBTS, BUT DISGRACED PUB ISHER’S SON OFFERED MI
By Ben Laurance
KEVIN Maxwell, son of disgraced publisher Robert Maxwell, offered millions of pounds to rescue doomed computer games company Gizmondo just as he was fending off personal bankruptcy, Financial Mail can reveal.
Maxwell held talks with Gizmondo executives just before Christmas last year and within 24 hours of persuading his creditors to accept 3.3p in the pound to settle his £30 million-plus debts.
Maxwell had already gone bust once before, owing £400 million, a record for a UK personal bankruptcy. Three days before Christmas, he avoided a second bankruptcy when creditors accepted a fraction of what they were owed because he said it was all he could afford.
But within 24 hours of securing the deal, Maxwell held a meeting with Gizmondo executives at London’s Dorchester hotel. He said he could arrange funds to keep the struggling company going in exchange for a stake in its parent, Tiger Telematics, whose shares are traded on the American Nasdaq exchange.
In the end, Maxwell failed to come up with the cash. He could not be contacted this weekend.
Gizmondo was forced into liquidation in February, having lost about £500,000 a day last year.
The collapse – Gizmondo’s parent clocked up losses of $263 million (£150 million) in 21 months – is one of the most spectacular British corporate failures since the dotcom bubble burst.
Insolvency experts unravelling Gizmondo’s finances uncovered staggering extravagance:
Gizmondo spent about £2 million last year leasing cars.
Nearly £ 80,000 of company money went on luxury suites at The Dorchester hotel.
The company paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for watches – many of them Cartier and Rolex. These were given to staff, investors and customers.
The value of Florida-based Tiger Telematics topped $1 billion in early 2005, buoyed by hopes that the company had a serious chance of taking on Sony and Nintendo in the market for hand-held computer games consoles.
But two Gizmondo directors were forced to resign last autumn after it was disclosed that they had been to jail for fraud.
The company’s driving force, Swedish-born Carl Freer – who was paid more than £1 million a year as head of Gizmondo – also quit as he had brought the two fraudsters into the company.
One of the former convicts, Stefan Eriksson, 44, was arrested last weekend in Los Angeles. Sheriff’s deputies confiscated a Ferrari. This was one of three expensive vehicles that financial institutions in Britain say belongs to them. The cars – two limitededition Ferrari Enzos and a Mercedes SLR McLaren – were leased to Gizmondo.
One of the Ferraris was sliced in two in a 160mph accident two months ago. LA police also removed a gun from Eriksson’s house and a substance that is being tested to see if it is cocaine. Eriksson is in custody and is expected to face charges this week.
When he was in charge of the Hampshire-based company, Freer used a chauffeur-driven Maybach limousine. Eriksson received a £5,000-a-month car allowance.
Since quitting Gizmondo, Freer, 35, has been involved in setting up a mobile phone venture in Beverly Hills, a business which is now appealing for investors.
Freer moved into a luxurious Bel Air house with wife Anneli last summer. But the house is now on the market for $6.5 million.
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