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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

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GottaBeMobile.com talks with DualCor's Rob Howe

- Rob Bushway

In the past several days, I've received a couple of inquiries regarding DualCor and the status of the DualCor cPC. Yesterday, I left a message with Rob Howe, DualCor's President and COO and he called me this morning to talk about where DualCor is right now, the status of the cPC, and a peek into what their next generation products might look like.

GBM: As of late, DualCor has been having telephone issues, which has led some to think that you guys have folded up. What is going on there?

Rob Howe: DualCor is alive and well, and still in Scotts Valley, California. We have been busy at work with the cPC. We have been having some phone system issues due to Voice over IP problems, but we are working on getting them fixed. Please continue to call us at (831) 430-9001 and visit us on the web at www.dualcor.com

GBM: What is the latest on the cPC?

Rob Howe: We have been shipping engineering samples of the cPC, what we like to call version 0.9, for the past several months and have been receiving excellent feedback and suggestions.

GBM: When will the cPC ship?

Rob Howe: Because of the changes in the market place, technological advances, and customer feedback on version1, we have not decided on a launch date for Version 1.0. We are currently working furiously on the engineering for the cPC version 2.0 , which we are looking at shipping in the spring 2007 time frame.

GBM: What can we expect to see in version 2 of the cPC?

Rob Howe: Version 2 will have a single board solution instead of the two board solution that version 1 uses. It will be thinner, more elegant, sleeker, and will most likely have an integrated keyboard. Customer feedback and market research has indicated the need to integrate a keyboard.

I've asked Rob Howe to place GottaBeMobile.com on his list for engineering samples of version 1 and version 2, and he'll be keeping us up to date on how DualCor is progressing with version 2.

Hardware | DualCor

10/10/2006 1:12 PM MST

GottaBeMobile.com talks with DualCor's Rob Howe Comments [3] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Tuesday, October 10, 2006 1:25:15 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Excellent work. Thank you.
I have a feeling that we’ve seen the last of Dualcor- that they will simply become another “Vulcan Flipstart”.

From all of the press surrounding CES last January, the unit was pretty much “in the bag and ready to ship”- it’s amazing to me that so much could have changed from their original vision that they are unable to ship until over a year past the date. It looks like the release of the UMPC’s caught them by surprise and they have found themselves playing catch-up. I can only imagine that it would be easier to jump fresh into the UMPC space, rather than try to adapt a design that was already in production.

Unless the thing whistled and spit flames and noxious gas, it’s disappointing to think that we will never have the change to just take what they have now. I mean, overall, it’s not that bad a design.

I’m no expert, but I think it’s RIP for Dualcor and the CPC.

Michael Aaron

Tuesday, October 10, 2006 4:52:14 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

To say that Dualcor is gone is a bit jumping the gun. I think they have a great idea with the small form factor and i'm glad they have decided to stop the dual pda/xp system and have decided to included a keyboard. Here's to their future.

Jerry Fallon

Tuesday, October 10, 2006 5:38:33 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I emailed this to Dualcor:
Dear Dualcor, I just read that you were going with a newer form of the Dualcor. As(hopefully) a future customer I am happy with this decision. Here is what I hope your new computer includes:
1. 5" screen still but 16million Colors, roughly 6.5"x3.5"x1" footprint
2. Keyboard that slides out underneath the FULL length of the unit to maximize keysize and use. This seems to be a common missing component and a concern among consumers in umpc forums.
3. Wifi and Bluetooth internal.
4. Small "mouse knob" like the Eo models have. Orange knob in color photos of the eo v7110.
5. at least 1 Gig Ram so Vista capable.
6. Similar button layout of the Averatec AHI. The casual untapped gamer market will look eagerly at your mobile device. Gamers buy impulsively if they can get a system that will play XP based console emulators. A sure hit if so alled "gaming ready".
7. 2xUSB2.0, 1xVGA-out, perhaps 1xTV-out, Stereo(not Mono)Speakers, mic, headphone
8. Ethernet port. This was mentioned in several of the umpc forums as a necessity since not everyone has a wireless option at home or the office. The newer Samsung Q1b will lose some business because of this simple ommision.
9. VIA VX700 chip as opposed to the consumer disliked Celeron M ULV. Longer battery life and smaller form factor.
10. $999 to $1200 depending on other options like more Ram, GPS, etc...
Please excuse my arrogance with my suggestions. I believe these are necessary specs and will insure a popular product and a guaranteed profitable future for DualCor. Thanks.

Jerry Fallon

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