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Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

July 23, 2014

This article was contributed by Bruce Byfield

In January 2012, Aaron Seigo announced the Spark tablet. Planned as free hardware with KDE's Plasma Active as its desktop environment, the tablet was quickly renamed Vivaldi. Delay after delay followed, with few details, until July 1 of this year, when the project was officially canceled. Recently, Seigo gave his perspective about what happened, and the lessons to be learned from the experience.

Vivaldi and its related projects came directly from the first release of Plasma Active, the KDE desktop tailored to mobile devices, in September 2011. "Everyone agreed that if it wasn't on a tablet or other mobile device, what we were doing was just an academic exercise," Seigo said. "So we took Plasma Active around to various vendors, [and] we got very positive feedback, but nobody was really willing to be the first to release a device with Plasma Active."

In response, Seigo established a cooperative company, MakePlayLive, to produce and distribute the tablet and other free software and hardware products. As might be expected, many of those involved with MakePlayLive were also involved in KDE. In addition, MakePlayLive used git.kde.org to store its code, and KDE sites sometimes promoted MakePlayLive.

However, Seigo emphasized that "there was no official endorsement from KDE." In fact, one reason for establishing MakePlayLive was to create some distance between KDE and the effort to build a tablet. Consequently, the failure to produce Vivaldi has no effect on Plasma Active or any other part of KDE. "Having this hardware would have been a massive strategic and practical boost [to Plasma Active], but without it, Plasma Active is right where it always was," Seigo said.

MakePlayLive's efforts began with several months of researching and testing off-the-shelf devices from Asian companies. Many manufacturers were simply "out of our league," Seigo said, and they refused to take anything less than six-figure minimum orders. MakePlayLive had just settled on a possible device when its efforts were made obsolete with the manufacturer's release of a revised device. To make matters worse, the manufacturer could not say when the next revision would happen, or what its specs might be. Nor would the manufacturer agree to release any of the kernel code under a free license. "And this was one of the better companies we could find," Seigo commented.

Finding another manufacturer was difficult, especially because many of those that claimed Linux support proved, on investigation, to mean that they were planning to add it. However, by December 2013, MakePlayLive had settled on QiMOD, a UK-based company working on open hardware.

What happened then depends on who you listen to. According to QiMOD's public statements, MakePlayLive failed to communicate and kept changing the specifications. However, Seigo claimed, the demands for revised specifications came from QiMOD. Even worse, he said that the parts received were not functional without considerable modification.

QiMOD decided to redo the printed circuit board from scratch, but the delays meant Vivaldi would be released with year-old specifications, making it non-competitive. Moreover, after eighteen months, Seigo was "tapped out" financially. In desperation, MakePlayLive announced Improv, a commercial grade engineering board that would give MakePlayLive something to show for its efforts and help to finance Vivaldi while providing a technical base. The idea was that Improv would help open hardware developers to build prototypes quicker and bring products to market sooner. MakePlayLive got as far as taking pre-orders, but received too few to place an order with a manufacturer.

"The interest for Improv just didn't materialize," Seigo said. "Some people couldn't see past Improv as a 'Raspberry Pi++,' which it really wasn't, and some people thought it was entirely irrelevant. One KDE developer said that they just didn't feel any need to compete against Android like they did for MS Windows or MacOS."

The twin failures of Vivaldi and Improv left MakePlayLive in the position of having to offer refunds on pre-orders and paying for orders of components for which it no longer had a use. In all, the immediate debt "came to a little under $6K. A number of people who purchased an Improv actually told us to keep the money; some even sent more to help defray costs of winding down."

However, Seigo personally claimed to have invested $200,000 over the last two and a half years. This sum consisted of travel expenses, sample purchasing and test runs, support for free software projects, and "some salaries." He added that "my income during that period was pretty insignificant. I was taking a tiny wage at this point, just enough to pay some bills. Thankfully, my wife was working. Everything else went to other people working on [MakePlayLive] and material costs." This information may serve as a partial answer to complaints about transparency, emphasizing exactly how under-funded MakePlayLive actually was.

Lessons learned

Seigo takes a stoic perspective on the failure of MakePlayLive:

Certainly there was a certain amount of egg on my face. The failure was public. I got raked over the coals within KDE more than once for setting up a company that would dare to put money into these things. But that's not something I can't live with. I swung and missed. Next!

However, as might be predictable from such a frequent blogger, Seigo has derived several conclusions from events. To start with, Seigo noted that MakePlayLive was under at least two major handicaps. First, it was under-funded. "I think a more reasonable budget would have been closer to $500k. I could easily make it into a million dollar project," Seigo commented. Second, breaking into manufacturing is "very hard without a track record because you're building the relationship network from scratch. Saying 'no' to you is very easy: there are no existing sales agreements at risk."

Seigo also concluded that trying to deal with Asia while resident in Europe was a mistake:

Were I to start over, I'd forget Asia entirely for this kind of project and focus on Europe and the Americas for engineering and design. There are an increasing number of companies in North America and Europe that are able to do this work from printed circuit board design to manufacture and assembly [with] better quality engineering, fewer cultural gaps to jump through, and fewer time zones to wrangle. The cost will be higher, but the engineering results will be better and, amortized across the production run, the cost per device would not be significantly more. [Besides,] the Asian market for these kinds of products is entirely oriented towards retailers.'

Perhaps most important of all, Seigo now suspects that he was looking for support in the wrong places. "There isn't much business experience in the free software communities," he said, adding: "It doesn't help that most of the companies out there with a focus on free software do not care about mobile in the least. Those that do have their own semi-proprietary platforms already that they are protecting (for example, Android)."

In particular, most free software advocates fail to understand "that everything can go right with a new product and it can still fail. Success is never guaranteed -- not because anything is necessarily wrong with it, but because most new products fail -- which is why this hasn't destroyed my world or anything."

More specifically, Seigo said, "I don't think KDE is the right community with which to engage in these sorts of things. There is not enough understanding of appreciation for why such a thing is important, and certainly too few people willing and able to step up and make a difference-making contribution."

Certainly, an appeal to the KDE community seems to have done little to increase the pre-orders of Improv board — or even to have generated any discussion.

However, the lack of interest ran even deeper, according to Seigo. Despite the publicity given the Vivaldi tablet, "Few applications were made available with a touch interface. With a few exceptions, those that did make this leap were done by the small group of Plasma Active developers." By contrast, "those working on middleware and libraries tended not to see Plasma Active as a worthwhile support target, and some openly stated more than once that Plasma Active was happening at the expense of Plasma Desktop [the main KDE interface]" — an assertion that Seigo, who is a lead developer of both interfaces, characterizes as "both factually incorrect and absurd."

Nor did KDE e.V., the non-profit that oversees KDE affairs, show any "political will" to support Vivaldi or Improv, or even to explore their potential.

Examining how to strategically take full advantage of the opportunities presented by having a mobile stack, a digital content delivery system and store and what was the start of hardware/software cross-over projects would have made sense. Few were interested and opportunities were undoubtedly lost as a result.

Seigo conceded that, "I do think there is amazing potential energy in the various relevant communities. I am, however, at a loss as to how to tap into it." For whatever reason, Vivaldi and Improv simply failed to capture the imagination of many free-software advocates or KDE supporters. Perhaps the new ties between business and free software that MakePlayLive seemed to imply were simply too radical for those who could have helped it most.

Prospects for open hardware

All in all, Seigo found the effort to launch open hardware devices "amazingly stressful at times." Yet, asked if he would consider another effort, he replied, "Crazily enough, yes." He would currently be unable to finance it to the extent that he did MakePlayLive, but he would definitely like to try again. "Beyond all other things, I really hope that people see what we did as evidence that it is worth trying, rather than taking it as a lesson that it can't be done."

If nothing else, Seigo's analysis provides an informed perspective from which to view other free-software-based efforts, such as the Canonical and Jolla phones. Not only does he give insight into the delays and difficulties of manufacturing and marketing, but, if he is correct, regardless of technical quality, hardware with any degree of openness is likely to require not just one or two efforts, but many, before even one succeeds.


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to post comments

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 6:08 UTC (Thu) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (10 responses)

I mean this in the nicest, and most deferential way, but the only way to be successful in making a tablet that is going to be a success in the market is if your name is Apple, Google, Samsung, or similar. You've got to have hugely deep pockets, and iOS or Android to be successful. Consumers don't want anything else. I saw a friend with a Firefox phone getting all manner of abuse the other day, and that was from friends who know Open Source. The same will be true with KDE or GNOME on a device. It's not going to work at scale unless you've got massively deep pockets to upstage the incumbent players. The barrier to entry is just too high. That doesn't mean there isn't room for Open Hardware and such designs, but they're doomed to remain niche unless you've hundreds of millions of dollars lying around. This is just the reality of life.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 6:43 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (1 responses)

Consumers "don't want anything else" on the desktop either, or didn't for two decades buy anything that wasn't a PC or a Mac, but that hasn't stopped lots of people from trying. What desktop market share do you think KDE has?

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 25, 2014 7:51 UTC (Fri) by fb (guest, #53265) [Link]

Much in line with what the original poster said, I think that KDE is a niche desktop, with a corresponding niche market share. Nothing wrong with that. We just don't need to deceive ourselves into thinking that KDE (or Gnome) managed to become mainstream desktop alternatives. IMHO they are not.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 9:47 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (6 responses)

It's reassuring to know that Linux couldn't possibly be a competitor to established UNIX in the 90s.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 10:28 UTC (Thu) by jriddell (subscriber, #3916) [Link]

Replacing the hardware seems to be much harder than replacing the software for free software/open source communities. With desktop and server computer we have the luxury of commodity and de facto standardised hardware that became better than what Sun et al offered. With phones and tablets that doesn't exist so a company like MakePlayLive would be great but getting it started takes more resources than are available.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 13:34 UTC (Thu) by renox (guest, #23785) [Link] (2 responses)

> It's reassuring to know that Linux couldn't possibly be a competitor to established UNIX in the 90s.

I'm not so sure that you can deduce something from this: one could say that the UNIX companies overpricing, use of proprietary HW (well not every UNIX company but..), and the advent of cheap PCs made Linux's success possible.

For the phones and tablet,
1) there's already Android
2) the HW is the same for everybody
so competition will be tough!

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 17:21 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

Linux was successful because, by some metric, it was better than the competition. It's possible to achieve that without being a giant player. Difficult, admittedly, but the idea that people shouldn't even try to compete with Google is ridiculous.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 31, 2014 8:17 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Linux was successful because, by some metric, it was better than the competition.

Isn't that an absolutely PERFECT description of Google, when they started out, against AltaVista and the like ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 25, 2014 4:14 UTC (Fri) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (1 responses)

Linux was a contender because the Intel platform became 'good' enough for most of the work at a much cheaper price than the more expensive Unix hardware. So unless someone can come up with a $5.00 tablet which does just enough to replace a $500.00 tablet.. the difference in prices to push a similar shift doesn't exist.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 25, 2014 7:49 UTC (Fri) by fb (guest, #53265) [Link]

> Linux was a contender because the Intel platform became 'good' enough for most of the work at a much cheaper price than the more expensive Unix hardware. So unless someone can come up with a $5.00 tablet which does just enough to replace a $500.00 tablet.. the difference in prices to push a similar shift doesn't exist.

+1

Another point is that Linux's pace of development was far higher than the UNIXes it replaced, so it added a lot of goodies for early adopters to benefit from. From the outside, my assessment is that iOS and Android pace of development is at the very least high enough so as to neutralise that point as well (in truth iOS/Android are probably walking faster than Firefox/Gnome/Ubuntu mobile platforms).

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 21:37 UTC (Thu) by eean (subscriber, #50420) [Link]

I doubt Vivaldi needed the kind of mass-consumer numbers you are thinking of to be successful, where success probably is defined as being a 'doomed niche'. I mean what's wrong with being a niche product? To attract the attention of a Chinese factory you need some numbers, in the thousands, but it's not like you need millions. Look at all the little gadgets developed and built in China.

Ubuntu Edge

Posted Jul 24, 2014 8:16 UTC (Thu) by jnareb (subscriber, #46500) [Link] (1 responses)

Ubuntu Edge tried to go the crowdfunding route (Kickstarter) but failed... but perhaps it would be good road to Vivaldi / Improv?

Ubuntu Edge

Posted Jul 24, 2014 21:42 UTC (Thu) by eean (subscriber, #50420) [Link]

Yea a failed Kickstarter would've been been a lot nicer all around. Kickstarter is really best at this sort of thing, where the money comes first - or it doesn't come.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 10:22 UTC (Thu) by jriddell (subscriber, #3916) [Link] (1 responses)

> those working on middleware and libraries tended not to see Plasma Active as a worthwhile support target

Chicken and egg problem. At Kubuntu we spend quite a lot of time getting a version of Plasma Active working but without easily available hardware it got very few users and so nobody interested in developing it further. The Vivaldi didn't arrive so never happened.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 13:09 UTC (Thu) by mgraesslin (guest, #78959) [Link]

I also think that the lack of hardware is the main problem. If I consider how much time I wasted on the Pandaboard as an ARM reference platform or with the ExoPC... Attachable touch screen to easily test without deploying on a device? Would be nice. Screens with a DPI as on touch interfaces? Yes let's pay EUR 2000 for it. On notebooks the situation became better, but not everybody has the money to buy new hardware depending on the latest trends.

It's not fun to work with those things and for spare time devs who hack for the fun, it's just a meh. Also I think the Plasma Active team did a big mistake in making it not easy enough to co-install Plasma Active with a regular Plasma. We learned from that lesson, but I think it send out the wrong signal that you needed to e.g. recompile KWin.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 17:16 UTC (Thu) by thomas.poulsen (subscriber, #22480) [Link] (3 responses)

I wonder why they did not use the relatively open Nexus devices as reference devices, like Ubuntu does. That seams like a good substitute for dedicated hardware.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 19:31 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

Was the Nexus 7 released at the time Vivaldi was started?

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Jul 24, 2014 19:49 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Looks like Spark was announced half a year before the first Nexus 7.

Open hardware projects tend to take a lot of time, and things happen that might have caused different decisions if a product process was started later.

Having observed the last two years, I'd say that Jolla's and Ubuntu's approach of leveraging Android hardware driver support to the maximum extent while focusing on the added value does seem the best way to go. But it doesn't make the drivers more open by itself, so there are more hurdles for more purely free hardware projects (drivers included) like Vivaldi or maybe Neo900. But in the beginning of 2012 the mindset was still mostly about using normal Linux upstream kernel and maybe X.org, and trying to get non-crappy drivers for them. Accepting "Android" (stripped down) as hardware support package should make less time wasted on those issues.

It's hard to come from software background and decide to do hardware, so I'd think a co-operation would be best. Of course, there's not too much of suitable hw shops around, but I believe the Golden Delicious (http://www.goldelico.com/) could do wonders even with only slightly better resourcing. They've battled their way through GTA04, and Neo900 is a much better marketing effort with joining forces. With joining even more forces, and using everyone's strengths, I think there would be room for bigger successes.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Aug 1, 2014 11:57 UTC (Fri) by whyagaintang (guest, #97642) [Link]

I wish they developed plasma-active for a firefox phone or (a future firefox tablet) which is also contributing to a open web with html5.

Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Posted Aug 3, 2014 23:39 UTC (Sun) by DHR (guest, #81356) [Link]

Bootstrapping is hard. Innovating in multiple areas at once is risky.

There are a lot of touch-enabled notebooks now. I'd like my normal Linux desktop to let me use touch. That seems like a modest goal. It requires no hardware innovation.

Once that is mastered, perhaps innovation in hardware might be possible. Maybe.

I've used Nokia tablets. Sharp Zaurus. OLPC. ThinkPad x61t with Linux. None of these experiences have been great. Promising, but not great.

Android on Nexus 10 seems great. IOS on iPad seems great. But I miss the power of a notebook PLUS touch.


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