So I saw Rob's announcement that D&M did NOT purchase the Empeg line with Rio, so support is discontinued.

I have a few questions:

The note seems to say that support will officially be discontinued as of May 30. Am I reading that right? So if I have a problem with my empeg before May 30, I can still send it in and expect repair? On a paid basis of course.

What about after May 30? Is there/will there be anyone, third-party or otherwise, who can fix something if it breaks? Will the empeg guys be "allowed" to fix busted hardware on their own, assuming they can secure parts?

What about further software development? Should we expect that 2.00 is the last official version we're ever going to see?

Is Sonicblue even going to be around anymore? What do you guys expect to do now? i.e. is there any hope of seeing something like Empeg, Ltd. UK come back to life?

(cynical mode on) How do you feel about having been boned so completely by Sonicblue? (I certainly don't feel that great...)

Um, they got the Rio line and all new products. They did not buy the support channel. Assuming I read it right, the empeg team is employed, but that the support channel, still with Sonic Blue, is being officially dissolved.

I'm slightly confused as to what this means for empeg, my worst fear is that now D & M have rio's assets we'll never see the V3 software (Built from D & M's source). My question is was the V2 software an empeg only thing and now that 'empeg seems to be floating in free space' who exactly owns the software? Rob's post indicated that they were in negotations about something, is this likely just for support or for the software (V2?)...

Adrian

I think you misread the post.

Car Support has not been bought by D&M. All the technology, IP and the development team have been acquired and indeed we have officially worked for DNNA since Monday.

Losing support was a fairly predictable thing. With a userbase of 4000, vs. somewhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 for the rest of Rio, and with all units out of warranty it's simply not practical to integrate the car player into the new DNNA support organisation. I have been planning for this for some months and in practice there should be no interruption to support at all - it just won't be provided by DNNA or SONICblue.

You can send your player in for repair by SONICblue Car Support right up to May 31st. They will be paying Rob to work through June to clear any repairs that have already arrived. After that date SONICblue will not accept any more support enquiries - however, as I said, they only practical difference I think you'll notice will be a change of support email address. I'm not going to expand on this until everything is finalised, but I think it's fairly obvious what is going to happen.

This announcement has nothing to do with software development. I'm sure there will be no official car player development, as has been the case for the last two years. I don't see this affecting our actual release intentions in any way.

As for SONICblue, no, they certainly will not be around any more. They have sold almost all of their assets so they can quietly go Chapter 7.

I should point out, however, that I am certainly NOT speaking on behalf of SONICblue and this message is my interpretation of the situation. I haven't worked for SONICblue in almost a week after all

Rob

So I saw Rob's announcement that D&M did NOT purchase the Empeg line with Rio, so support is discontinued.

They didn't purchase the support operation, i.e. Rob Schofield only.

Is Sonicblue even going to be around anymore?

No.

What do you guys expect to do now?

Carry on working for Rio, which D&M did buy. Planet Empeg comprises Rio's entire software engineering team, and is unlikely to be disappearing en masse any time soon.

Peter

We're not floating anywhere - the structure is more defined than it has ever been. Here goes:

D&M Holdings are the parent company

Digital Networks North America is a new subsidiary of D&M

Rio, ReplayTV and Escient are the operating divisions within DNNA, effectively operating as independent companies. There is also a back office division which is shared by everyone.

The former empeg team work for DNNA in their Rio division. The president of Rio and almost everyone else within the division are the same people we have been working with closely for the last year or more. All the projects we have been working on - such as the cute new HDD portables - are continuing on schedule. The v3 car player is effectively the codebase from the "Pearl" project, which is why it continues to get substantial development hours. My justification for releasing the car player version of the build is to get testing for Pearl, and it makes a lot of sense - everyone a winner.

Rob

How do you feel about having been boned so completely by Sonicblue?

I don't feel boned by SB. Whilst they probably weren't the best thing to ever happen to the empeg, remember that they did actually go bust. And remember that they did do so *after* virtually giving away many thousands of Mk2a players. The firesale prices were way below what the units cost to build. And they have allowed the empeg guys to continue to develop for the car player even after they stopped producing them. That is pretty amazing in itself, even if Rob and the team had to fight from time to time in order to justify it.

All in all, I think that SB have treated me quite well. My empeg and me are still going to be around next week/month/year, unlike SONICblue. If anything, I've boned them.

(especially if those Centrals inexplicably ship!)


If you read Rob's post carefully, he did say that he was working on something regarding long term support needs. Obviously I don't know what he has in mind, but even if it were as little as procuring the remaining spares and the rights to distribute schematics/documentation (under NDA probably) then I think that we would be set. Given the level of technical expertise amongst members of this BBS, it wouldn't be too long until someone stepped up to the plate. (This is assuming that Rob Schofiel doesn't continue anyway in an ex-officio capacity).

My bigger concern is whether Rob can persuade Empeg Ltd.'s new masters that the car player is still useful for software development and proving, so that we can get v3 at some point in the future.

Out of interest, when support stops what will happen to any spare players that you were holding onto for warranty reasons? Are these likely to be sold off? If so, I'd like to get a spare! (Most secondhand sales tend to be in the US, and it's a pain to ship a unit from the US to the UK) . For that matter what happens to anything 'hardware' empeg related?

Adrian

My question is was the V2 software an empeg only thing

Not sure what you mean here. Unless I missed a memo of some kind, it seems to me that all development since the acquisition of empeg, Ltd. by SonicBlue was done on SonicBlue's dime, under the Rio umbrella. D&M, having purchased that, would now own all of that software, and that would include V2 as well as V3 branches. So it would be their say as to what happens to what particular software, and formal permission would be required to do anything to it.

The coolest thing D&M could do for the community, of course, would be to say that the car player branch of the source tree isn't relevant to their future plans, and allow for its release to a very hungry development community. We all know that's not bloody likely, but it's fun to dream about.

..that's kind of what I meant, we all know that the V3 source code is used for other products, what I was trying to ask/say was 'is the V2 software empeg specific?' such that it holds no particular interest with D & M.

Adrian

The carplayer v3 is most definitely not a distant branch; it's the current *trunk* of the empeg sourcebase. A source release isn't going to happen. Ditto for v2.

We don't have separate source - everything builds from one repository and almost everything is shared between products.

Hugo

I am well aware of this, and disclaimed myself by clearly stating that I was dreaming.

My bigger concern is whether Rob can persuade Empeg Ltd.'s new masters that the car player is still useful for software development and proving

Our "new masters" are the same people as our "old masters", up to President of Rio level (my boss got a promotion).

As my job title still appears to be "Manger, Rio Software" I'd say we get to work on what we want to work on as long as the roadmap is delivered on schedule. I'd love to have roadmap time to work on the old car player but that's obviously not going to happen, so we leverage off other projects and fit in debug time where we can.

Let's stop talking about software - absolutely nothing has changed since last week!

Rob

Yeah, that was made clear to me in the post you made whilst I was still typing. Thanks for calrifying this for us - and very quickly too. You guys really are a class act.

Funny that dglidden should bring this up, I was just updating the relevant FAQ entry this morning to remove the name Sonic|blue, and to update some details. But essentially, the situation hasn't changed since the time when they first EOL'ed the product over a year ago. The only real big difference is that now the one-year warranty has expired on all the players.

All the projects we have been working on - such as the cute new HDD portables - are continuing on schedule.

A little voice tells me that the Pearl was initially to be realeased late july or early august. Is this still true ?
I'm asking this because I'm still in the market for a HD portable mp3 player, and that new iPod is looking mighty fine. So is that new Creative Zen 60gig.

But is the Pearl is still on schedule, I guess I can wait a couple more months.

Ooooooh, the pearl looks nice......

Rob please tell me it's going to be available in the UK!

In reply to:

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Rob please tell me it's going to be available in the UK!

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dream on

That would be the approximate time frame, yes.

Rob

Rob please tell me it's going to be available in the UK

DNNA's European strategy for Europe hasn't been unveiled yet, but I have heard murmerings that D&M consider the international (i.e. outside the USA) market to be of great importance.

It doesn't really help that the UK MP3 market is practically non existant these days, with almost all major high street retailers exclusively bought into minidisk. The situation is better elsewhere in Europe, but still not even close to the level of adoption in the USA and Japan.

Rob

DNNA's European strategy for Europe hasn't been unveiled yet

Probably because it's awaiting approval by the Department of Redundancy Department.

It doesn't really help that the UK MP3 market is practically non existant these days, with almost all major high street retailers exclusively bought into minidisk.

And was it like that before you guys had this crazy idea to start a company, in the UK, that made car MP3 players?

Probably because it's awaiting approval by the Department of Redundancy Department.

I decided to change "strategy for Europe" as it sounded too much like the Eurovision song contest, but then I forgot to erase one of the words. Of course it could be that DNNA also have a European strategy for Asia..

And was it like that before you guys had this crazy idea to start a company, in the UK, that made car MP3 players?

Although the market was a little better then (the retailers hadn't been scared off yet!) I don't think Hugo and Steve really gave it any thought - the plan was to sell a couple of hundred players in total! It wasn't intended that empeg would become a long term proposition. The other day Mike found the email from Hugo inviting him to come and work on some software for a new car MP3 player - it assured him he wouldn't be needed for more than a couple of months

Rob

(Note to self... never believe Hugo's time estimates.)

If a version 3.0 is in the works, where can we send comments on possible features or changes?

Cory

That'd be the Wish List forum on this very BBS.

As my doppelganger says, Wish List forum. But make sure to do a search to see if it's been wished for before and if there are any responses to it.

As my doppelganger says,

YES!

For those keeping score:

tfabris: 93,267
yn0t_: 2

Don't call it a comeback...

Only another 12,602 posts to go before you over take him on the BBS...

- Trevor