... the dropping prices of hardware. I strongly suspect that we could put together a company with a world-class engineering team that could revitalize empeg production.

There are many diverse talents on this BBS. I am a mechanical engineer who has been in the sales side of technology for over 10 years. I have negotiated reseller and licensing agreements and run sales and distribution in North America. I have colleagues who have worked for me running Europe and Asia/Pac sales and distribution. I have also been involved with venture capital due dilligence and am *somewhat* familiar with raising money as a small company.

On this board are very talented engineers who could take the fantastic empeg design and tweak it for even greater ease of manufacture and assembly. Overseas outsourcing alternatives exist for manufacture.

I've been thinking about this for a while now. It seems to me that it may be possible to *license* the empeg player software from SonicBlue and have them as the OEM software supplier for a startup manufacturing and distribution company.

As you all know, technology has gotten significantly less expensive. Laptop drives continue to drop in price, and it may be possible to manufacture an "empeg clone" for significantly less than it was just 2 years ago. The empeg is still head and shoulders above any other offering. I think we all agree that it was the high price coupled with its early entry into the market that kept empeg from becoming a household word. A lot has changed. 3 years ago, mp3s were still mostly for geeks (like me!). I am continually amazed by the number of business people on airplanes with their iPods. The mainstream market is beginning to embrace mp3.

If the design team stuck with hardware that was completely compatible with existing software, and *if* a business relationship could be created that provided for the licensing of that software, well, it just might be possible...

The process would involve understanding unit costs and cost breaks, writing a business plan, and getting it funded. Not easy and it is a lot of work.

Comments?

Jim