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Subject: Re: The Novag Star Sapphire isn't available yet...

Author: allan johnson

Date: 00:28:58 10/21/01

Go up one level in this thread


On October 20, 2001 at 17:53:47, Steven Schwartz wrote:

>On October 20, 2001 at 15:09:34, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On October 20, 2001 at 11:34:38, Steven Schwartz wrote:
>>
>>>On October 20, 2001 at 08:39:57, O. Veli wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 19, 2001 at 10:46:34, Steven Schwartz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Where did they get Star Sapphires? The chips to manufacture them
>>>>>will not be available till late December, and product won't be
>>>>>available until January?
>>>>>http://www.icdchess.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?page=8/80-N13.html&item=80-N13&cart_id=2600247.17861
>>>>
>>>>  Is there any concrete evidence for this? Star Sapphire was supposed to come ou
>>>>t in Summer 2000, then Christmas 2000, and now January 2001. Wasn't Novag
>>>>renamed as Perfect Technologies? I look forward to this product, but have no
>>>>hope of seeing it in my hands.
>>>
>>>
>>>The chips were supposed to be available in early November so that
>>>the product would be available for Christmas. However, we received
>>>word about a week ago that the chips were delayed until late Decmeber.
>>>So, January delivery looks good. However, we have learned from 23 years
>>>in this business that new product is delayed more than it is on time.
>>>We will know for certain that they are here when they get here. But
>>>right now January is as good a guess as any.
>>>Steve (ICD/Your Move Chess & Games)
>>
>>
>>
>>I don't want to sound harsh, but in my opinion this product is dead before it is
>>born: you can just buy a PDA and download a good chess program for it and you
>>get a better combination than the Star Sapphire.
>>
>>Even if the unit is cheaper than a PDA of the same speed at this time, it's just
>>a matter of months before PDAs are cheaper and faster. And naturally they are
>>more flexible.
>>
>>If this product had been released when it was first announced, something like 2
>>years ago, it would have been a winner. But 2002 is too late. I don't understand
>>why investors would put money in this anymore (unless they are blind).
>>
>>I must certainly be missing some piece of important information about the unit.
>>But what?
>>    Christophe
>
>
>Having sold $10,000 and $6,000 and $2,000 and $1,000 chess computers
>in pretty high numbers in the past, I can never predict what our
>customers will and will not like. We have started taking pre-orders
>for the computer. I will let you know in a month or two just how
>successful or unsuccessful a venture it is going to be.
>
>I think the success of failure of the Star Sapphire and Star Diamond
>will be a pretty good predictor of whether the stand-alone high end chess
>computer market will ever attract a sizeable number of customers again. It
>should be interesting.
>
>Steve (ICD/Your Move Chess & Games)
 Steve: I have 3 stand alone chess computers the best being the Risc 1.How
much better will the Star Saphire be than the Risc1?
Al



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