In a survey of cell phone manufacturers, i-mate wouldn’t have been near the top of anyone’s list. For years, the company spouted mediocre, unlocked Windows Mobile-powered smartphones targeted sort of at enterprise customers, and sort of… at anyone, really. Once, I asked an i-mate senior PR person at a press event in 2007 to explain their different smartphone model lines to me, and who each one was targeted for. I literally received a shrug and an “I’ll get back to you with a real answer.” (They never did.)
Now Engadget is reporting that i-mate, after dumping its U.S. operations several months ago, is now closing up shop completely. That means any (of the three or four) fans of the i-mate JAQ can no longer look forward to new models from the UAE-based company.
The report said that i-mate has already been delisted from stock markets around the world, and that retailers waiting for shipments of the upcoming 810F will now be left holding the (empty) bag. This follows i-Mate CEO Jim Morrison’s challenge back in February of this year: “To all those crap journalists on their Web sites who say, i-Mate’s dead, no, we’re ****ing not.” Oh well.
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