I heard a rumor today that Rio is going to discontinue the Empeg because its not making any money on them. Not enough sales or something like that. Any truth to any of this?

So what's the source for this info of demise?
I just looked up Cartoys inventory & theyre out of stock on rio-cars, may not mean anything. No I haven't heard anything past the v2.0 software mentioned or nothing of Voice Recognition has been talked about or updated as to when it'll be out but I'm hoping theyre just busy getting them done.

#695-Mk2/8 colors-12Gig/TUNER- awaits v2.x & Voice Recog.

if they are planning on doing that it would have been pretty stupid of them to have wasted the money having the tuners made and further devoping software

32Gig MK2 In 2001 VW Golf TDI

I heard a rumor today that Rio is going to discontinue the Empeg because its not making any money on them. Not enough sales or something like that. Any truth to any of this?

I certainly hope not, but this looks like a typical reaction of a panicked company made up by aquisitions of everybody and his brother and incapable of integrating its aquisitions and making them make money in reasonable time ('redundancies', as Rob put it, are another typical reaction [1].)

If they do decide to discontinue it, perhaps they could sell it for a song (perhaps a few shares of their not so valuable stock) to a certain group of people across the pond . Now, if those people succeed in raising a pound or two of venture capital [2], we could almost be in old good days again [3].

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

[1] It's funny how companies decide to save by laying people off. Take Boeing in the aftermath of WTC tragedy: they decided to lay off 30000 people, but don't know yet from which units. That means that the thing does not begin with "Let's see whom we can do without, and who is going to have nothing to do due to such-and-such changes in the market", but simply "Let's cut payroll expenses by $75zillion".

[2] I was investigating venture capital market recently, and it is hillarious. A British company, for example, recently rose quite an amount for launching a ground-breaking service: each subscriber to Cosmopolitan is going to get a daily advice on achieving better orgasm over SMS (advice, not orgasm). (OK, so it was just one of services; the idea is that sponsors would pay them to pester sponsor's clients with just a little more that thinly disguised SMS spam.)

[3] What worries me is that empeg is not Hugo's first project. What if he decides to switch to gardening, hot air balooning, running a retaurant or rock band...

Given the level of investment that Rio has made to:

a) Acquire empeg Ltd.
b) re-engineer the Mk2A player
c) develop the V2.0 software (yes, it exists)
d) add it to the inventory in bulk stock
e) set up a sales arrangement in two countries (even if there are hiccups)
f) re-engineer and produce the tuner module
g) hire specialist staff specifically to work on the introduction of VR
h) allocate an advertising budget to publicise it widely
i) enter into a re-sale agreement with a major car Hi-Fi chain

- and numerous other reasons, don't you think that this is just a teensy-weensy bit unlikely? Oops - forgive me; my scepticism's showing here.

I would really like to hear the source of this "rumour". Suffice to say, it is just that - a rumour - until we actually see a cancellation happen.


One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Where on earth did you hear this?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

I will repeat the question everyone else is asking: What is your source for this rumor?

___________
Tony Fabris

A dealer told me. They sell Rio Car in their store and they even had one guy buy a large number of units recently based on this rumor.

From what I have seen, dealers are not to be trusted. They are usually much less intelligent and informed than 95% of the people that frequent this board. I have had dealers tell me absolutley anything to sell stuff.

One thing I was wondering though, how come the number of registered users on this board has not continued to increase as fast as it used to? Are the Roicar owners not as likely to view this board as the empegers? Or are sales really slowing?

Alex Lear

One thing I was wondering though, how come the number of registered users on this board has not continued to increase as fast as it used to? Are the Roicar owners not as likely to view this board as the empegers? Or are sales really slowing?

I'ts about time to think about MK3. That should be cheaper to manufacture. Maybe you should move production to Estonia. I guess Elcoteq Tallinn would be glad to have new client. They had to fire a lot of people when they lost Ericsson as a client. They are good at manufactureing high-tec stuff. They make stuff for lot of major companies like Nokia and etc (includeing mobile phones).

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

Well, not to substantiate his claim or anything. As far as I'm concerned it is just a rumor. But this is a VERY reputable car audio dealer/installer. I am having them install my Empeg and there was no reason for him to make something up. I already own an Empeg. We still haven't heard a peep from anyone at Empeg refuting this rumor by the way.

Rob???
any comments?
I can't stand rumors.
Can you disspell this one??
Say it isn't so.

12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

Sounds like a romour started to increase sales. One guy buys a number of them based on this 'fact'? It's obvious this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The empeg/Riocar is more about software development not just pushing boxes out the door. Sure there is more in development costs so far but when all the planned functions are implemented, the boxes will just flow out (provided the distribution network allows it ).

Murray
Go-Wit-Da-Fro

Folks, unless you work for Empeg or Rio...any opinion you spout about whether or not Rio or Empeg would ever discontinue our beloved MP3 car player is PURE speculation. Can someone from Empeg or Rio please confirm or deny this rumor?

As I said before, this particular dealer is VERY reputable. They regularly do $50,000 and $80,000 car stereo installs on a regular basis. They have a monthly add that runs in the Robbs Report. There is little or no incentive for them to "make up" a rumor like that...particularly to me since I already have an Empeg. If they told me this rumor...its because they heard it somewhere else. So maybe its a rumor and maybe not. But I sure would like to hear what someone from the factory has to say about it.

Not to substantiate or refute this, but as a couple of added data points:

1.) SonicBLUE laid off (n>1) people this past week, including some folks in Cambridge (Rob was not among them, as he sent me e-mail after the fact, but it is a fact that such has happened, unless he made that up)

2.) Nobody (so far) from Empeg/Rio/SB crew has spoken up at all on this topic. While silence is not necessarily "symptomatic of truth", it is a reality that they're really good (historically) at shooting down FALSE rumors, and keeping their mouths shut when a rumor has a hint of truth in it (because of very understandable confidentiality issues they face as employees of said company).

My only hope is that, if the RioCar is headed for the coulda-been pile, that the code will get released to the world so that the hackers among us can play with all the stuff that the companies will have decided isn't worth their time and money.

Of course, I really hope the rumor is completely false, of course, that goes without saying.

D

My only hope is that, if the RioCar is headed for the coulda-been pile, that the code will get released to the world so that the hackers among us can play with all the stuff that the companies will have decided isn't worth their time and money.

Something to consider: Even if there's any truth to that particular rumor, it wouldn't mean that there won't be any more products without Empeg code. Sonic Blue bought the team and their talent, and it's no secret that they have far-reaching plans for their software. Since the player/database code is their bread and butter, the odds of a GPL release are pretty slim no matter what happens.

Hell, even is Sonic Blue folded completely, the team would probably start another company or find some other way to make use of the existing code base. It's too useful and valuable for them to give it up now.

___________
Tony Fabris

True, but there are certainly portions of the code that could get released to the users without really treading too far on the "stuff that does make money"... the upgrade client, emplode, etc.

I think you are unlikely to ever get any of the player (Linux) code GPL'd . That is the stuff that makes the money IMHO - has a shared code base with devices such as the RioReceiver, for example, and isn't the embedded Linux device market where it's at these days? That stuff is what is valuable.

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 26GB blue)

1) Three programmers were lost from Cambridge the week before last - Haydn Fidler, Andrew Evans and Nathan Johnson. In total 90 people were let go throughout the SONICblue group, as each of the individual holdings were amalgamated into one operating company. The former empeg team are now the Audio Applications Software team, within the SONICblue Engineering department.

2) Nobody from Cambridge has spoken on this subject because it was only raised yesterday (Sunday) and believe it or not we don't always read the BBS at weekends. At least three of us were busy getting extremely wasted on a nice beach on the south coast.

I'll post a full response in a few minutes.

Rob

In reply to:

---

I'll post a full response in a few minutes.

---

Erhmm.. doe not sound too good... well, the 'F5'-key has never been used so frequently, I think...
why does Rob post a "full response"... must be something true about the rumour

Frank

Mk2 40GB #090000592

Hey, Tony, say something!! Rob Schofield??? Hello?? Read Rob's Thread?? Well, was it a nice adventure...

Frank

[edit]F*U*C*K*O*F*F* *S*O*N*I*C*B*L*U*E! You killed it![/edit]

Mk2 40GB #090000592

Edited by Ionic on 24/09/01 04:14 PM.

OT:

[1] It's funny how companies decide to save by laying people off. Take Boeing in the aftermath of WTC tragedy: they decided to lay off 30000 people, but don't know yet from which units. That means that the thing does not begin with "Let's see whom we can do without, and who is going to have nothing to do due to such-and-such changes in the market", but simply "Let's cut payroll expenses by $75zillion".

The 30,000 jobs (its actually closer to 31,000) all come from the commercial aircraft division. They are mostly the line workers (no engineers as far as I can tell so far) and the 'shared services group' (still haven't figured out exactly what they do besides IT support) that support them. So the jobs are being cut directly from the component that is affected right now, the Military Aircraft and Missiles division is as strong as ever.

And now back your your regularly scheduled program...

I don't think saying "you killed it" is correct; yes, there will be no more mk2a players made - but there are still plenty available.

The issue is more that the car audio aftermarket is both very competitive and brand sensitive; the investment required to produce a player that is as "finished" (to a consumer's eye) as the top-line brands such as Sony, Kenwood & Alpine is huge - these companies have been incrementally improving their designs, tooling and mechanisms over decades.

What we bring to the party is great software and board-level designs; it's far more logical for us to work with people who *already* make head units (and as such have the mechanicals completely sorted, plus distribution and sales channels) and provide the complex software know-how. This way, the end products are much better.

We're not leaving the car market; all the announcement says is that a Rio-branded mk3 isn't going to happen and the mk2a has now become a limited edition. We're all still here, working on various things including car software - the current product is a great showcase for our software talents.

So, anyone who was holding off getting a rio-car expecting a mk3 to appear - buy now :)

Hugo

So, should I take the plunge and buy now or wait for what will be produced in the future? Will I be able to get a better device than the Mk2 in, say, one year, at a lower cost or is this head unit so ahead of its time that it will take five years or more for something equally advanced to hit the market?

This reminds me somewhat of Apple's Newton, a PDA with advanced hand-writing recognition, which has been hardly matched by today's 32MB-MP3-playing, hi-color screen hand-helds - more than three and a half years after the Newton was abandoned by Apple.

Georg

You're unlikely to be able to get something as full-featured (and usable both at home and in-car) from anyone else in the forseeable future. You're very unlikely to be able to buy something which is as tweakable, or which has features such as ethernet and a readily available shell prompt.

The reason why the above is unlikely is that things like the empeg-car don't often make it past accountants; our secret was to get Steve brainwashed early on :)

Both Pioneer and Sony have shown consumer in-car jukeboxes which will be launched next year; neither has the organisational flexibility of the empeg-car. Neither can be used at home. Neither has ethernet. Both may well have many SDMI-esque restrictions - but both are usable without needing a PC, and have amps and tuners onboard. From what I've seen, both will also be more expensive than the empeg-car.

I can't say that something else won't come out - technology moves onwards constantly. If you wait a year, you will have been missing out for a year on what many users have (and love) now.

Hugo

Buy it now... I never regretted getting my empeg. Or to make myself more clear on both our native language:

"Schwing' Deinen Hintern hoch und sieh zu, dass Du noch schnell so ein geniales Gerät bekommst!!

Bye
Frank

Mk2 40GB #090000592

In terms of post-warranty repair it looks like we may need to create a "Hugo Fund" to ensure someone is around to repair our broken mk2's once our warranty is up. A lot of early empeg consumers are approaching the end of their warranty.

I don't want to have to shell out the money for a "spare" mk2, but I'm worried about what may happen down the road. I just know that I couldn't live without mine.

-Kit

Ironically, we expect the userbase to more than double within a couple of months because of this announcement. Without the incentive of a looming EOL the players have simply not been selling.

We're disappointed that there will not be another empeg style car product, but had there had been any demand for such a thing this wouldn't have happened. We have to consider that empeg may have gone out of business at this stage, whereas most of the team (including all of the original empeg people) are still here and working on some very cool SONICblue products.

Rob

We will be keeping plenty of spares, though it's very unusual for whole boards to suffer unfixable problems - usually it's a case of a connector needing to be replaced or a buffer chip swapped.

Displays are more fragile, but again we will try to ensure that there is replacement stock available for quite a while yet.

Hugo

Don't you mean "stronger than ever" with what is going on at the moment?

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 26GB blue)

One thing that hasn't really been alluded to is the future of our little board here. While I'm sure we'll all be perfectly willing to talk about our players, the fact remains that we really are going to have less to talk about in regards to them. In the next few months we'll be talking about v2 plenty, and depending on what happens with the VR, that might keep us going longer. We'll also have the newbies snatching up the left over players that will post questions.

But to me it looks like 6-8 months from now we won't have a whole lot besides 3rd party projects to discuss.

What do you guys think? I really want to keep talking, and hope we have plenty to talk about. This is my most frequented board now and I like coming here and reading the stuff posted by folk who know what they're talking about (even if I don't ).

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

Greetings!

I have become so attached to my empeg that I just did what you posted here. I just ordered the smallest unit available, and I will put it on the closet shelf. Just in case my production unit gets broken in the future. While I know that support will be available for the software, and there will be a limited time for hardware support, I know that it will not go on forever.

I have been thinking about getting another unit for a while, more to tinker with and to have in case I damaged my current one / needed to send it in for repair. This announcement pushed me to action.

Meanwhile, I am sad to hear about the layoffs, and I hope that everything works out for those who were hit. Also, I am glad that most of the empeg folks are doing well, and having fun on other projects while still working on the RioCar.

I don't suppose you have an extra hard drive cable laying around...

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)

Hugo, let me first said that I feel very lucky to have stumbled two years ago (I don't remember how) on a web site operated by a certain bunch of British nuts.

I think that Sonic|blue made less-than-halfhearted effort at marketing Rio - no, empeg car. Selling through one not so good car-audio chain covering a handfull of US states can hardly be called having a retail channel. Experience with US online sales would be laughable if it were not sad. All possible totally avoidable delays are unforgivable. Where were ads, reviews in geekish magazines, those little items in 'gadgets you must have' in Playboy and similar magazines for self-deluding men spending more that their actual disposable income is? No, if SB honchos say the empeg niche is very small and already saturated, they are lying to themselves.

Several questions (you have already answered to one - that you will make every reasonable effort to keep our precious cache of empegs working):

- Is further empeg car software development unique to our toys, of (hopefully) there exists a common codebase with some other products? If the former is the case, I am quite pessimistic about post-V2.0 future...

- You said SB cannot make an aftermarket product as polished as, say, Sony. You also said that the future is not in aftermarket but integrated audio. Which way (if any) will SB go: license empeg car technology to some aftermarket manufacturer, or to car manufacturers (or their OEM suppliers)? If the later, a car manufacturer, or will we ba able to buy the product(s) in variety of new (and not only American) cars?

- How much dumbed-down will eventual new products be? Will you have any say in it?

TIA for any answer you might be able to squeeze past NDAs and such...

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I think that Sonic|blue made less-than-halfhearted effort at marketing Rio

You may think so, but I couldn't possibly comment..

Is further empeg car software development unique to our toys, of (hopefully) there exists a common codebase with some other products

The codebase is common to all products that we develop within the Audio Software Applications team (as we're now called). The Rio Receiver, for example, runs the same code with some alternate build options. We have recently completed (to RC stage) a large project which has, as a side effect, brought about many improvements to the forthcoming Car 2.0 code. That project is entirely unrelated to the automotive market. So, even without specific automotive developments the car player can benefit - but in fact automotive developments are very much at the forefront of our plans right now.

Which way (if any) will SB go: license empeg car technology to some aftermarket manufacturer, or to car manufacturers (or their OEM suppliers)?

Both. We have been working with the world's largest automotive ancilliaries manufacturer for over two years, and more recently have entered into serious discussions with major auto manufacturers and after market car audio brands. In general we can't discuss these projects, but existing Rio Car owners are likely to benefit from them in a number of ways, as well as future customers who will have the opportunity to use our technology via more mainstream routes.

How much dumbed-down will eventual new products be? Will you have any say in it?

Hmm, maybe we should use the term consumer friendly

We are able to offer OEM clients a broad range of modular products. We can and will advise on which features are suited to particular markets, but at the end of the day the product specification is in the hands of the customer. One would assume that they in turn will be influenced by the characteristics of their target audience.

Rob

After some thought, I have finally been able to formulate a response to this news.

Firstly I have to say that I'm disapointed with SB. I don't think they backed their new riocar as much as they could have. MY impression is that they had already created these other mobile units and that was going to be the main focus or their campaign. There certainly weren't, as was pointed out, the units being shipped to the major mover and shaker magazines to promote the player. There wasn't the advertising in car audio magazines and on web sites. How does a product that until now has only been available via internet ordering break into these markets that have been dominated by 'traditional' marketing strategies? It HAS to used those stratagies as well.
There is not a single manufacturer of mainstream car audio equipment that is worth it's salt, without a decent website. So where was the SB promotion of the riocar advertising?

I feel that SB acquired empeg principally to invest in the brains at empeg, not capitalise in the empeg car product. While I'm elated that most of the empeg team is still with SB, I'm annoyed that SB didn't do more to enhance, market and promote the riocar. Rob, you said that the riocar is several years ahead of it's time. Why the hell didn't SB capitalise on that? Years ahead. So now they're going to orphan a world leading product in order to come back to the level of the other manufaturers?
Why are they taking so many steps back after such an enourmous run forward?

I truly think that SB, unintentionally or otherwise, let empeg down by not allocating resources to their latest acquisition. Unforgivable production delays, shipping problems, etc etc. If they needed it to succeed, the company manager would have been crashing through doors to fix the problems.

I hope that the software support continues as promised. At this time I'm inclined to want that in writing, not from Rob or Hugo because I would follow them to the ends of the earth, but from the Rio product line manager or accountant who is in charge of funding these now 'sideline' projects.

I'm so glad that V2 is so close to production, but I'm aprehensive about further development beyound that. I'd be in for the $100 levy to fund the research and production of the VR project. hmm, $100 from 1000 people, invested wisely for the next few years could provide quite a good foundation for this project.

I hope that the empeg will be the 'test bed' for upcomeing OEM projects which Rio develops. This way we will see continued developments of our own investments.

hmm, I've said about enough for now.

Murray
Go-Wit-Da-Fro

I think that Sonic|blue made less-than-halfhearted effort at marketing Rio

You may think so, but I couldn't possibly comment..

You didn't try very hard to convince me otherwise . I'll take that as a loud enough comment.

I hope that your other rather optimistic predictions will pan out.


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I really don't hink SB gave it much of a chance either, hardly anyone knows about to be sure & some people I know had never heard of Rio! The ads aren't there which as McDonalds proved, advertising is directly proportionate to sales. Hell SB didn't even have the empeg a year before bailing on it.

#695-Mk2/8 colors-12Gig w/Tuner- awaits v2.x & Voice Recog.

Its most dissapointing when i read geeky magazines to find a rave review on the Neo 35 or some other relatively pants car mp3 player.
Obviusly i dont know the full story of the lack of marketing at SB, but i guess they figured if people want an empeg, they will buy one, rather than we want people to want one. Bastards.

I, like most people on this board, take it as an ego boost: When my friends go "whats that" and i explain what it is and how mainstream it will be, they are in awe. But now general people who havnt used it properly before will just think its [censored].
I think most people on this board take the discontinuing of the empeg/riocar slightly personaly..

Lets do something before it is 2 late. Review the article on this page . So at least in Holland potential buyers might be persuaded!

huub 080000135

Now that you're not trying to market this product anymore, do you think we can have some type of backup software built in?
There really isn't a concern of an injuction being imposed by the RIAA.
The product will remain a toy for hackers.

I'm utterly astounded that someone (who isn't employed by empeg) hasn't written a functional backup utility by now!

I tried once, but I have a Mk1 and the parts of the C++ source were missing for USB. So I didn't get very far.

Despite people requesting the missing code at the time, it only appeared yesterday...

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Little do you know ....

I suppose it is because those with the ability to write this sort of thing are also the sorts to have installed something like ftp (server or client) which allows you to backup the empeg anyway...

It's one of those situations where it hasn't been a big enough itch to scratch for those that can scratch it...

you could write one and release it under an alias (unless rob is one and we have been decieved all this time then you could use your real name :-) )

32Gig MK2 In 2001 VW Golf TDI

Are you implicitely stating that someone who IS employed by empeg has? I would bet that's the case!
So, would that someone leak the code, or am I asking too much? If I am, no problem, I understand completely. But I just wanted to try :)

Taym
_________________________
MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

So, would that someone leak the code

No, I don't believe he would .


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

So, would that someone leak the code, or am I asking too much?

You're implying that code needs to be leaked. It doesn't.

All the necessary code to write a backup utility is available. Proper examination of the public-domain emptool sources will reveal the necessary things you need to write a backup program.

There may not be a backup/restore utility in emptool, but the pieces are there, watiing to be used. Somebody please write one, OK?

And while you're at it, please put file-taxi capability into it, too, so we can have a catch-all utility for all empeg file transfers.

___________
Tony Fabris