The Road Ahead

With every startup comes a business plan, where you project how your sales are going to increase, and how startup capital slowly gets replaced with profit. Every business plan optimistically projects terrific sales and profits in no time, of course. Noone projects failure.

And with every startup, things tend to follow the business plan for the most part, but then there are "deviations."

It seems that enTourage has hit such a deviation. Specifically, the "market" has not recognized widely enough what great devices the EE and PE are. Yet, several people have recently posted that people in their circle never even heard of the eDGe and immediately see its value. enTourage gave their best shot at marketting, but sometimes you aim wrong. Ultimately, sales appear to not have been as wonderful as the market research and business plan projected.

enTourage seems committed, as it should not surprise us old timers, to continued customer service and tech support above all else. A lessor company would simply call it quits, but enTourage clearly isn't ready to abandon us yet. With careful cashflow management, enTourage can survive with the hope that sales ramp up to a level at least to maintain a niche status quo. enTourage likely will never be an Apple, but that doesn't mean they can't thrive at a lower scale.

I've decided to stay optimistic.

We probably won't see any new models for a while, but we'll probably see Ermine reach a final version, although later than usual. With fewer resources, things simply slow down, but they don't necessarily stop altogether. The pace of subsequent bug fixes will likely be much slower and enhancements may reduce to a trickle at best.

NiaTrue asked what we can do to help. Clearly, continued and increasing sales are the answer (unless someone has a couple of million dollars they'd like to generously invest?). What we can do to boost sales in our circles of influence is what is going to help. enTourage no doubt will continue a campaign of promoting the eDGe in trade shows, conferences and campuses.

And of course, enTourage needs our patience and support. Having been in their shoes myself once, I can tell you that morale is tough to maintain in such a situation. But a company with a shred of hope can hang on surprisingly long (again, from my own experience).

So, should you buy an eDGe today? I'd say, yes. The company seems committed to fulfilling their support and warranty commitments by reorganizing their resources, and both models are excellent devices. They're well built, they're lasting well, and with Froyo (Android 2.2), they work better than ever and have a renewed lease on relevancy.

Ultimately, in a couple of years you'll buy something new anyway, but in the meantime, enjoy an eDGe and help support a company that has a great idea and is doing their best in a room filled with much larger competitors.

I wholeheartedly agree with Boris. We need to keep optimism and keep showing our beloved Dualbooks to everyone who will show an interest. We might also brainstorm and think of ways we can generate such interest.

One thing I would like to add, however. In appreciation for our continued optimism and work on their behalf, I would hope that Entourage would also communicate to us their thoughts and desires and plans as well.

Just my humble contribution...

Considering what has been reported by the founder's typical modus operandi I think they could be following their business plan: Get a couple production runs sold to look like they've moved volume, then sell it off, and run away.

I'd like to be optimistic. But, that's as much as I could manage.

TigerDirect.ca is now selling the PE again for only $312 (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...tourage%20edge). That's a huge drop from about $427 a few weeks ago. Not only that, it shows in stock ("ships today") and without the previous "Limited Quantities". Other retailers are showing more modest price drops.

BTW, while the enTourage retailer page shows "Pocket eDGe", when you go to a retailer site, do a search for "Entourage" to get listings of both PE and EE devices.

Originally Posted by kenjennings

Considering what has been reported by the founder's typical modus operandi I think they could be following their business plan: Get a couple production runs sold to look like they've moved volume, then sell it off, and run away.

I'd like to be optimistic. But, that's as much as I could manage.

I think those past companies are still in business, aren't they?

Originally Posted by borisb

TigerDirect.ca is now selling the PE again for only $312 (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...tourage%20edge).

The US TigerDirect/CompUSA has it listed online for USD $249.

Hi, borisb, do you know where can buy EE and has discount?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by kenjennings

The US TigerDirect/CompUSA has it listed online for USD $249.

I was contemplating of buying it at that price on Monday (Amazon/Tiger Direct), but adding 15$ shipping and 20$ tax on it was not cool, although still cheaper than it was last week (Amazo or Tiger or others, lowest price was 360$). I grabbed one from ebay for 250$ (red PE, new open box) including shipping. All other ebay listings now are in 400+ range for buy it now (I don't like bidding process. Should get it Friday. I am leaving for conference early Sat, hope to set it up right away and use and show off.

Originally Posted by sunnyone

Hi, borisb, do you know where can buy EE and has discount?

Assuming you're in the States, $465 is the best price I could find for a new EE (most are $499): http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ook_Black.html (it's in stock).

Used (and like-new) eDGes can be found on Amazon (via third party retailers) and eBay.

Regarding business/marketing of Entourage... We don't really know what went wrong. They have killer device, but has not niche market properly it seems. I agree this will help educators, lawyers, doctors and other professionals tremendously. I can justify 300$ for business device like PE, but not 600-1000$+ for iPad "toy" (although my 8 year old wants one). But she also WOW over picture of PE on web (she says - I can read on one side and play youTube on other!). She is getting my old Kindle, though. See how this PE works, may be others in my family will get one later...I really hope that they continue sell and support and improve software on EE and PE. But may be if they bought up or re-groupped they can come up with better device in 3-4 years (just as PE battery dies)??? In present state of affairs it is hard to market it to big businesses or universities for bulk purchase if the company is folding... They need to communicate with their loyal supporters on this Forum more!

Larka2006: yes to everything, both the hopes and the diagnosis.

Just want to say that I've had awful problems with Tiger Direct (sold me a refurbished item as "new"), as have a lot of other people (google will reveal many tales of woe). You might want to consider taking your business somewhere else.

Also want to say that a number of people, academic and professional types, I've shown my EE to have been impressed, want to buy one, but I can't in good conscience recommend it because we don't know what's happening with the company. If eNToUrAGe would at least release their code, I could recommend the machine to techies and other people who don't scare easily. There are lots of those.

I still recommend my eDGe to people understand what they need and what they'd be getting. At the end of the day, the eDGe still works fantastically and will likely do so for the next two or three years, at which point most of us will be ready to purchase the latest, magical tablet that is actually epaper, folds into a pocket-size square, has built-in bluetooth, wifi, etc. and will predict the exact date you'll hit the lottery.

Heck, just earlier this year I think I prompted a sale for a Nokia N810 because someone fell in love with mine! If people know what they're getting, and what a device can do at this exact moment and are OK with it, they can still be quite pleased with these gadgets that offer something that their competitors never did.

Sometimes it seems like the hottest apps being downloaded are for games. And the EE is not a gaming tablet.

As for marketing, I think Entourage should identify and target schools using LMS like Moodle or Blackboard. Maybe Entourage should even host a Moodle site so they can demo how well the EE works with texts and online LMS. It wouldn't cost them much - Moodle is open source and there are tons of texts which are public domain. Teachers and professors need to SEE what these tablets can do. It's like you have to spoonfeed them at first because they are often busy prepping for class, reading books and grading papers that they may not feel like they have time to learn new technology. If you could make THAT easy for them, I think they might really buy into it.

The Moodle market is really strong world-wide. Entourage should get in touch with Martin Dougiamas (founder of Moodle) and become an officially recognized "Moodle Partner."

I saw my first Entourage at a teacher technology conference. I had been shopping for a tablet - and when I saw simple things like storage of stylus, easily swapped battery, in addition to the dual screen, I was impressed. I wished, however, I had known that there was no GPS, no accelerometer, no access to Android market though. I wonder how much it would cost to add those items to a next generation eDGe. (And SIM card 4G access).

Oh well.