The Fusion Garage fiasco: Seriously, what's with this company?

By JR Raphael (@jr_raphael)

Wow -- remember Fusion Garage, the mess of a company behind the CrunchPad-turned-JooJoo tablet debacle and the more recent Grid10 circus act? According to The Verge, the company has effectively gone AWOL: Customers who placed orders for Grid10 tablets say they never received them and can't get any answers; all the company's social media channels have gone completely silent; and no one seems to know what the hell is going on.

If all of that isn't damning enough, get this: The PR firm representing Fusion Garage has reportedly given up altogether. The firm, McGrath Power, told The Verge that Fusion Garage has been uncommunicative for "weeks." The official statement:

Unfortunately, none of our efforts have resulted in any communication from the company to the customers. Given all of this, we don't have any other choice but to cease working with FG effective tomorrow.

Ouch.

Last we heard, Fusion Garage's Grid10 tablet was supposed to ship on October 1. The product was originally set to launch on September 15, but three days prior to that date, the company announced it was delaying the tablet due to "new criteria in Adobe['s] Flash Player 10.3 approval process" -- an explanation that sounded just as strange then as it does now. This followed some confusing and misleading demos and generally terrible early reviews from writers who had hands-on time with the device.

I've been openly skeptical about Fusion Garage's efforts from the start. When the company announced the Grid10's delay in September, I wrote an admittedly harsh story in which I questioned whether the thing would ever actually ship. As I explained at the time:

Forgive my skepticism; it's just that the company behind the Grid10 doesn't exactly have the greatest track record. Fusion Garage is best known for last year's CrunchPad-turned-JooJoo fiasco, in which a tablet originally developed with former TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington ended up being delayed and rebranded before being released with a resounding thud. The reviews were godawful, to put it nicely (Wired's headline pretty much sums it up: "JooJoo Is a Real Piece of DooDoo") -- and the sales were practically nonexistent.

There's more to the story, though: Behind the scenes, I had even more reason to be wary of what Fusion Garage was selling. I haven't discussed this publicly before, but I had initially planned to review the new Grid10 tablet. The company, however -- via its PR firm -- gave me what can only be described as a ridiculous runaround. It was an extremely strange experience in which a rep alternated between ignoring me and assuring me everything was on-track and looking great, despite all signs to the contrary. 

Then -- after nearly two months of back-and-forth correspondence -- out of the blue, the rep started grilling me about what kind of review I planned to write. Before sending me a review unit, she said, she wanted to make sure my story would "align with [the company's] target audience." This occurred on October 5, four days after the product was allegedly being shipped (which the rep continued to assure me was actively happening as we spoke).

At that point, my editor and I both agreed it was time to give up. The situation looked like something between a scam and a joke -- or, at best, a misguided and amateurish effort.

So, yeah -- while the recent reports of Fusion Garage's disappearing act are certainly discomforting, I can't say I'm entirely surprised. I'll be very curious to see what, if anything, we hear from this fickle crew in the future. I can only hope they'll voluntarily come forward to refund the money to the (presumably seven) people who preordered their product.

One thing's for certain: It'll take an awful lot for me to take them seriously ever again.

JR Raphael writes about smartphones and other tasty technology. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Article copyright 2011 JR Raphael. All rights reserved.