Insightful interview with Seybold:

http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/24/cherrypals-max-seybold-talks-africa/

Thanks for picking that up Andreas. Max never ceases to amaze us. Have a look:

Cornell - Base of the Pyramid

It was a great project actually funded through USAID and the US State Department.

Let's just say we are working on the updated version of the plan now...

R&B

Quote:

I don't mean to sound negative, but these guys tend to forget that it's not the computer that provides access to the internet but the telecom infrastructure. And the situation in Africa isn't that great about internet infrastructures. Most of them are owned by ex-colonial western countries or dependant from them, and until the africans get full control of their own ressources and make it available for the masses i only see these attempts as pretty vain.
It's a very difficult market as it's mostly political before being commercial.

People there don't need netbooks, they need infrastructures first. And at the moment they are being developped by the chinese...

You are exactly correct. Maybe, we will write about this someday...

Agenda
China in Africa Today Seminar
6-7 March 2007

Tuesday 6 March

07:30-08:00 Participants in process at conference facility/light refreshments available

08:00-08:05 Opening remarks (Maj Gen Craig Koziol, JIOWC Commander)

08:05-08:30 China in Africa Today (Maj Gen Remkes, ECJ5/8)

08:30-08:45 Introduction/Admin (Lt Col Eric Brown, JIOWC)

08:45-08:55 Seminar Strategy and Process (Mr John Rendon)

08:55-09:10 Break

09:10-10:00 China's Strategy in Africa (Dr Peter Pham, Director, Nelson Institute)

10:00-10:30 China's Strategy in Africa: The Internal Perspective (Mr Joseph Lin, Associate Editor, Jamestown Foundation)

10:30-11:00 US Policy in Africa (Ms Claudia Anyaso, Director of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Bureau of African Affairs, DoS)

11:00-11:30 EUCOM Africa Strategy (Maj Gen Remkes, ECJ5 J5/8)

11:30-13:00 LUNCH/Administration

13:00-13:30 Why are African Governments attracted to China's regional efforts? (Ambassador Robert Gribbin)

13:30-16:30 Group Discussions: Strengths and Weakness of China/US Approaches in Africa (Mr John Rendon)

13:30-14:45 Topic: Resource development and trade (Discussion leader: Dr Douglas Yates, American University of Paris)

14:45-15:15 Break

15:15-16:30 Topic: Infrastructure development and economic aid (Discussion leader: Mr Bill Buck and Ms Raquel Velasco, Genesi)

16:30-17:00 DAILY WRAP-UP

17:30-20:00 Reception/Dinner (Aldaco's Mexican Cuisine)

....


R&B


[ Edited by Genesi on 2009/12/26 23:57 ]

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 20.04.2011 - 06:35 ]

I seems to me that statements in this thread have been made in the extreme in both directions and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, just as it usually is when any discussion becomes too passionate, or heated and emotions get involved.

I hope cooler heads can prevail and the tension can be lowered here as the negative emotions toward each other only hurt the value of the discussions on these forums and there is already too much arguing and even hatred on too many websites today.

Can't we all (including myself) make more of an effort to discuss differing opinions in a more civilized manner and also make an effort to make this World a better place to live in?

Quote:

and you seriously think that the chinese will let Cherrypal using the infrastructures ? well maybe...but not before they had put a chinese netbook into every african hand : )

The effort must be global when it comes to Africa, selling cheap gadgets is not enough. You must think infrastructure + device + service. Otherwise you'd better sell unbrellas in the desert

> not before they had put a chinese netbook into every african hand : )

Funny thing is that the Cherrypal Africa netbooks which are MIPS/XBurst based *are* of Chinese production :-) Maybe (some of) the ARM or x86 based ones as well.

> Insightful interview with Seybold:
> http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/24/cherrypals-max-seybold-talks-africa/

Updates:
(1) http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:www.teleread.org/2009/12/29/cherrypal-orders-any-delays/
(2) http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:www.teleread.org/2009/12/29/cherrypals-max-seybold-econo-laptops-set-to-arrive-in-two-weeks-of-date-of-order/
(3) http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:www.teleread.org/2009/12/31/cherrypal-shipping-status-update/
(4) http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:www.teleread.org/2010/01/06/cherrypals-max-seybold-responds-to-order-cancellation-and-other-concerns/

Edit:
Made all links refer to Google cache because articles were taken offline. Probable reason:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=745937#post745937

Edit #2:
Clarification from TeleRead:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=746819#post746819


[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf on 2010/1/19 6:36 ]
[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf on 2010/1/19 12:16 ]

Hilarious. Wonder what Max Seybold will do next time. Fortunately for him, the world is full of lamers who consistently fall into his fashionably labelled scams: First, "save the world with the two watt computer" (which was based on a real product), then "save your pocket with the hundred dollar laptop". Ignorance is to blame, not him.

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 20.04.2011 - 06:42 ]

> Seybold claims that Cherrypal prioritized deliveries to poor countries, and we can't
> necessarily expect those recipients to jump on blogs and report back

I think they could put their new gadget in good use by doing so ;-)

> There were people a year or so ago who said the original Cherrypal nettop was vapor and
> just conception drawings created by computer graphics people, and that wasn't true.

There were also people who claimed that for the price of a Cherrypal Bing alone both a C114 and a Bing would be delivered, and that wasn't true. Nobody got a Bing back then, not even separately.
And there were people who told tales about some mysterious cloud being established, which led some other people into buying Cherrypal's product. Remarkably, there's no such cloud up to now.
And there are people who claim that the Green Maraschino Cloud will go online ("again", as they falsely claim) no later than 6 weeks from now. We'll see if that holds true this time.

> there are people who claim that the Green Maraschino Cloud will go online ("again", as
> they falsely claim) no later than 6 weeks from now. We'll see if that holds true this time.

Did it?

> Edit:
> Made all links refer to Google cache because articles were taken offline. Probable reason:
> http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=745937#post745937
>
> Edit #2:
> Clarification from TeleRead:
> http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=746819#post746819

Seybold's own stance on this:

"I made myself available to bloggers of relatively unknown sites as well. When I turned down their request to provide free review units the tone of their coverage became obviously hostile. In one case I had to send a cease and desist warning since the accusations were without any substance and didn't represent in any way what I had mentioned in interviews."
Source: Cherrypal blog entry from a week ago

If you want to know about Cherrypal's "underwear crisis" then have a full read ;-)

Further insightful finds:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/eng/1663805096.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/mar/1685012708.html

That blog entry's FIRST phrase:

"Cherrypal is probably the only major laptop vendor being accused of scam"

What does "probable" refer to? To the scam accusation, or to considering themselves a MAJOR vendor!?

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 20.04.2011 - 06:37 ]

Quote:
Also good to see they have removed this tri-core nonsense from the description of the C120. But the price is rather high for that thing.

> Good to see Max taking the false accusers on.
> It's a scummy thing to do to falsely accuse someone.

As you seem to know which side tells the truth and which doesn't (instead of just assessing that there're two opposing views):
Would you please cite these false accusations from said coverages (not the comments to these), which are preserved here?

> "To the best of our knowledge all impacted customers have either received their
> Cherrypals or got refunded by now."
> Good for Cherrypal.

Some more "false accusations":

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=872128#post872128
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=872134#post872134
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=882112#post882112

Quote:

Ouch... Velcro, are you on a multi-site quest to destroy your credibility? It's a pity, I remember enjoying wise comments from you some time ago, before you mutated into a kind of Cherrypal supporter. In fact, when was the last time you talked about something else? I don't remember.

Yeah, Max, er sorry Velcro_SP, it's getting boring. Just accept the obvious: Cherrypal is a scam and Max is a fraud. You know, if everyone around screams "FIRE!" that might indicate that there actually IS a fire!

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 20.04.2011 - 06:34 ]

...meanwhile, LimePC pops up again in an engineers conference, showing evidence that the products actually exist. But why they never get to first world market?

> Some more "false accusations": [...]

And even more:

"After the worst online-order of my life, with many neglected promises and an ending with a useless castrated WinCE Cherrypal Africa, many times promised to be exchanged for a new Linux computer (never happened), I'd strongly suggest not do do any business with the guys from Palo Alto."
http://blog.hep-cat.de/?p=6888

And after the "Africa" from Asia running WinCE or Linux there is now the "Asia" from Asia running Android.

Andreas keeps on his efforts to point out every negative issue coming from Cherrypal. One might think it's biased information, as there might ba also happy customers, but it's just referencing facts and others' opinions.

In all, I'm very surprised there's still people bothering to buy Max Seybold's products. Is his marketing campaing THAT good? Hey, let's do the same!

Modern life is a mystery to me.