Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Can't wait to get my Bug and my full suite of modules. It'll be a Bug Labs hacking kind of Christmas!

QUOTE [From Bug Blogger » Blog Archive » Manufacturing Update]

Starting November 17th we will start shipping the latest BUGbundles to customers with a goal of having ALL backorders fulfilled by December 1st. From that point forward we will be in a position to ship all our customers their new BUGs within 2 days of placing their order. We also have a number of exciting, new modules coming available within the next few weeks so stay tuned!

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Beside delaying my Bug yet again (so first September and now November), this is another indicator of how deep this recession is (or will be). I don't recall a hardware manufacturing gadget crash during the dot com collapse!

QUOTE [From Bug Blogger » Blog Archive » The Credit Crisis in Action]

Over the past couple of months I’ve been reading with great interest all the postings on how the current economic crisis can/can’t, will/won’t effect the start up world. Having lived through the 2001 - 2003 nuclear winter, I feel strongly that no one will be spared, irrespective of how big your company is.

This reality scored a direct hit last week when we got a call from the CEO of our contract manufacturer (domestic, not overseas). Their credit lines were pulled by their bank (one of the big ones) because they had violated some terms of their loan agreement. While in the past, this type of thing was met with a “let’s work it out” type of attitude from the bank, instead given the credit crisis, that attitude disappeared. Consequently, they closed the facility where our product was being built.

As a result, we needed to immediately pull all our inventory, test fixtures, and packaging out of their facilities. To say the timing was terrible is a grave understatement. Our products were literally on their assembly lines, on schedule for our early October shipping deadlines.

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I want the entire suite of Bug Modules but I live in Canada. I tried to order with my Canadian Credit Card with a US Shipping Address but as I suspected, it didn't work. Thanks to the fine folks at Bug Labs for their patience in dealing with my multiple emails on this subject! It's not the end of the world but it's a bit disconcerting to see that despite "free trade" and "globalization", things haven't progressed since I was a kid ordering software and other gadgets from the USA in the 1970s and 80s, i.e. it's still ludicrously difficult to get gadgets over the border. Can we have a Schengen like zone between Canada and the USA please?