Adam 2 will make everyone sit up! Will it?

Whoever got their hands on Notion Ink’s Adam, I have to say, good for you. You might be holding a pioneering engineering effort and probably a little ahead of its time gadget. Whoever got their hands on an Adam but bricked it, then head over here, and get it unbricked. From the tone of Rohan’s blog posts, I can sense that, Notion Ink is chipper about the whole thing. Orders are being shipped and customers are happy. Notion Ink is getting ready for the next batch. It has also shared the logistics details and shots of shipments. All is fine in the Adam world.

Rohan has left everyone with this comment about Adam 2:

We are waiting to release some information on Adam 2 (which will take 9-15months from now!). It is going to be an exciting piece of engineering and we will surprise the world by making everyone sleeping in their beds, come out, sit over the edge, and become a part of it! We will release the road map, timelines and other details. This time, we will make it with you!

Honestly I can’t wait for it. But if I have to step back and see what happened in the last twelve months, there are some key learning‘s. Notion Ink has went from pre-order blues to photoshopped images to bricking the device. It has come past that through the tought times with some honest blog posts. A job well done. If we get past that and get to the device itself, the device is ideated probably in 2009, it was presented at the CES in 2010 as a prototype and it was finally launched at CES 2011. Not bad for a company which is only a device old. But the problem with Adam at CES 2011, is it didn’t get the much needed recognition or the recognition it deserved. There are plethora of tablets that were launched, 100 of them to be precise, and Adam wasn’t what everyone was talking about.

Motorola Xoom is the tablet everyone was talking about. Like all big companies, Motorola was secretive about it, released a teaser ad by challenging Galaxy Tab and iPad and finally launched the product. All of this happened in two months – at least to us. If we just think that Xoom is an exception then we got some Samsung Sliding series which took whatever thunder is left. Would this hamper the sales for Notion Ink? Probably not. This world has place for plenty of tablets. Adam would do just fine. That’s not the point.

Adam has some stunning features. There’s the pixel Qi screen, 178 degree rotating swivel camera, touch pad at the back, scratch resistant screen and a radio too. Adam comes with its own marketplace and its own Android OS. Despite this Adam had to settle for a ‘honest attempt’ award. I cannot say if this is right or wrong, but I can say this – Notion Ink’s might have to re-think its strategy.

Adam 2, then next version of Adam is already in the making. I thought they were calling it Eve but then I digress. Adam 2 will take anywhere between 9-15 months. As per Rohan, this is something the world would sit on its edge. I am sure the world would love to sit on the edge for exciting new products. And Notion Ink will try to involve everyone in Adam 2, just like they did for Adam. If they do it that way, where’s the point of sitting up and noticing? The world would know day in, day out of what you are making, and it ceases to be a surprise. Apple and Motorola has already proved that for successful product launch – in addition to having a good pre-ordering strategy – it should be highly secretive. Notion Ink should have proved them wrong with Adam launch. It didn’t. Shouldn’t Notion Ink try something different now? You know, something like going secretive?