Robin at TC writes:
Modu, the heavily-funded Israel-based modular phone manufacturer that enables you to slip a light mobile device into a variety of so-called “jackets” (think music players, other cellphones, car stereos, digital cameras, etc.), is prepping its big commercial launch for this year by unveiling its family of phones at the upcoming Mobile World Congress. The actual sales for the device will start at the beginning of next quarter.
Modu started teasing everyone in January last year, and revealed what it had in store a month after. Crunchgear’s John Biggs dubbed it cool but flawed, but this was all way before the company ever had something to show for its promises and – meanwhile – over $85 million in venture capital funding. Well, now they do.
Calcalist is reporting (Hebrew only) that Modu has brought in another $7M in funding courtesy of Qualcomm which as part of the agreement will also manufacture the Modu “core”.
Modu has had a whirlwind of a year, first debuting to much fanfare at last year’s Mobile World Congress, where we had a chance to sit with the company’s CEO, Dov Moran, for a 1-on-1 for a demo. The company then went on to raise a whopping $100M round. Then in November Modu announced a 33%, 88-employee downsizing in November.
The Guinness Book of World Records has named the Modu mini phone “the lightest mobile phone in the world.” The phone, which we saw at MWC this year, weighs a mere 1.4 ounces and is .3 inches thick. Modu received a $100 million cash infusion last week.
The phone, as you’ll remember, works as a standalone mobile device or fits into different “jackets” that basically take control of the mini core and can act as smartphones, game phones, or music phones. Expect Modu to hit the US late this year or early next.
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I was pretty down on Modu, which is essentially a module-based GSM system that consists of a tiny handset — no bigger than a business card and about a quarter-inch thick — and a bunch of “mates” or “jackets” that wrap around the phone to do different things. Now that I’ve seen it up close and talked to the founder, I’m a bit more interested yet still reluctant to state that this will be an absolute success.
The idea is this: Modu makes the modules and sells an SDK to manufacturers like Bosch and Magellan, two actual partners. The partners write a few GSM hooks into their firmware and to make calls, pick up SMSes, and get data. You buy a module and two jackets for about 200 euro in shops and then buy additional jackets — media players, GPS devices, vibrators, etc. — as needed.
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Modu, the mysterious modular cell phone doohickey that we told you about a couple weeks ago, “is set to announce Thursday that it will launch the phone, also called Modu, on Oct. 1 with Telecom Italia SpA in Italy, OAA Vimpel Communications in Russia and Cellcom Israel Ltd,” according to the Associated Press.
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Looks like our own John Biggs will be eating his hat very soon. Thanks to a stealthy tipster we have some info on Modu just for you. Chances are we’ll see an official announcement and a hands on with the device at 3GSM.
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Feel free to call me cynical but I’ve seen this video a thousand times — remember Origami? — and the concept of a take-it-with you ID built-in to various CE devices like phones and apparently GPS receivers is compelling but almost impossible in reality. Look for more info at DEMO next week but I’m calling bullshit.
via TC
