Court filing and 5-12 products shipping this year
21 April 2004
Warren's Consumer Electronics Daily
Volume 4; Issue 77
Warren Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
E.Digital filed a claim with the American Arbitration Assn. seeking to enforce its supply contract with Eclipse by Fujitsu Ten. The filing, which seeks $2.5 million in damages, caps "several weeks" of "unsuccessful dialogue" between the companies during which Fujitsu Ten sought to buy out or restructure the supply agreement, e.Digital said. E.Digital, which signed an agreement with Fujitsu Ten in March 2002 to work on developing a car audio "infotainment" system based on its MicroOS platform, had expected the first revenue from the pact to arrive in the 4th quarter. The $892,000 order was originally expected to be delivered last summer and was later postponed until Nov., e.Digital CFO Robert Putnam told us. Production of the device at one of 2 Asian suppliers was stopped in mid-Feb., he said. The damages being sought are tied both to the amount of initial order and engineering costs, Putnam said. Fujitsu Ten officials weren't available for comment at our deadline.
E.Digital dropped its own branded products late last year as moved to pursue an OEM strategy tied to its software. The first of the MicroOS-based products arrived last fall in the form of Gateway's DMP-X20 juke box player and another 5-12 products from other vendors are expected to ship this year, Putnam said. China's TGE Group and Musical Instruments have agreements with e.Digital to build products based on MicroOS, Putnam. Many of the new products will be based on Cornice's 1" hard drive with a 1.5 GB hard drive. Cornice signed an agreement with e.Digital last fall.
AI
