I hope this is not true. Apparently a big company is in very serious trouble

[John C]

Custard, you thought that was good????
Blimey .....

Anyway, one of the largest assets that SP has are its patent rights, those alone are worth millions.

Considering they make money from every electronic gun and board sold.
It must have taken some real mismanagement to get things so badly wrong?


Im with Bon on this one. Lots of businesses have gone under recently. Honest, hard working ones at that.

The recession doesnt kill a business on its own. It just hurries things along.

 

[Gassy]

In my opinion they have had a visit from the

 

[stongle]

The recession doesnt kill a business on its own. It just hurries things along.

Cashflow (or lack off) kills businesses. So maybe, the US recession has given the company issues. That saying, "IF" they do legitimately own the intellectual property then they have assets. I doubt if minority European sentiment put a dent in SP, but the simple process of (mainly) US players re-assessing where they put their hard earned. As it's cash that really underpins the whole of paintball, I often wonder why so little thought is put into the return on a consumer's investment?

 

[Bon]

Id suggest that the lack of innovation that comes out of smartparts as of late has something to do with it all.

Apart form the luxe, sold under a different name what have they done?

The ion... rebanding it with different names and upgrades only goes so far. It is a pretty nasty marker be all and end all, and for just a few more bucks you can pick up a high end marker second hand, or even something like the Protoge (a vice with less fancy milling) whichw ill kick its ass.


Shockers... realy? how old are these now?


Milsim stuff... how many people do you see running around with an SP8 or whatever they labeled it.


The new impulse, basically a gen 4 timmy.


Considering how much momentum SP generated with the release of the ion, im surprised to see they couldn't keep the ball rolling.

 

[jack_judge]

Uhoh another company copying bob long

 

[head_-_shot]

Just like the Nike story its just a rumour for some reason they are being dispersed around every forum there is

also if SP as to go under, I would be more worried about the state of tournament and that sort of stuff, SP finance a lot of event and support shizz like that.


EDIT: nothing to worry about -

http://www.catshackreports.com/2009/09/smarts-parts-still-open/#more-2394

 

[Fisz]

Bon,

While I am no big fan of SP, you have to give respect where it's due...

First of all, I don't know if you noticed but it Smart Parts releases markers in a 2 year cycle more or less.

Shocker SFT (2003) Shocker NXT (2005) Luxe (2007-2008) just as an example.

About innovation, there's plenty of it in the Impulse. In no particular order:

Hinged Eye Covers (definitely an improvement over the magnetic ones they did on the Luxe)
LPR and HPR placed in the grip (makes the gun feel heavy but that's an illussion, it's simply a different weight distribution)
Separate tubes on the body (cleaner look and covered eye wires)

These may be tiny things, but they are evolution, some of them with benefit to the player, others a smart way of changing manufacturing of guns.

That's still more than you can say about some of the companies out there.

 

[snax]

Uhoh another company copying bob long

Bugsy not me




TAKE COVER !

 

[BubbleGumBob]

here comes the flame war

 

[Bon]

Bugsy not me




TAKE COVER !

No need to hide, i got told off last time so im not allowed to be naughty for a while



And while you say it has some new stuff on it, it doesn't make up for the fact it looks like sh*t!







id rather buy an ego