The JooJoo Is Dead, But May Have A Second Life

Even though Fusion Garage founder Chandrashekar Rathakrishnan openly stated that the JooJoo tablet is “at its end of life” as far as development and compatibility with future FG products goes, that doesn’t mean that the tablet is completely dead. In his widely-quoted interview with e27, Rathakrishnan admitted that, as a consumer device, it’s not really what people wanted.

I think it’s very obvious with the advance of the iPad that while web remains probably the number one thing that we do with our devices, the lack of end-to-end connectivity means that there’s a need to have a hybrid, to have both a web and non-web experience. And that’s where we fell short with our product.

I feel as though I could have told them this even before the iPad came out. Actually, I did. But that’s not the point. The point is that the JooJoo may still find a place in vertical markets.

“Chandra said transportation companies, hospitals and advertising agencies were interested in a customized version of the Joojoo. He said Fusion Garage would adapt the Joojoo’s hardware and software for specialized use by these companies. These customized devices would not carry the Joojoo brand.”

So maybe all the effort wasn’t wasted. Yes, the U.S. launch was apparently disappointing and even if the European and Asian launches were better, as is claimed, they obviously weren’t good enough to merit continuing the product. Existing users will still get support. It can’t be that hard to keep the lines open for less than 200 people, right?

It will be interesting to see what the company brings us in 2011. Perhaps now that they are unencumbered by the dreams and desires of Michael Arrington they can make something that’s all theirs. And if those products flop, there will be no one else to blame. If they fly, then it’ll show they had the chops all along.

In the meantime, there have to be some righteous hacks for the JooJoo floating around out there. If a body were to want to do something cool with the JooJoo just lying around, what would that be?