Xero's Latest Plans: License Unproven Idea Internationally

from the shouldn't-you-do-something-first? dept

Fri, Jun 9th 2006 7:46pm — Mike Masnick

Xero Mobile is the excessively hyped up MVNO play that many people believe is simply the second coming of Gizmondo -- which apparently was something of a scam to enrich its founders. Xero has many connections to Gizmondo, and shares a basic business model plan with the company that recently shut down after burning through millions, while making very little in revenue. In many ways, it's apparent that even while Gizmondo was something of a colossal failure, its executives made out quite well, paying themselves million dollar salaries while giving themselves expensive luxury cars as well (which they don't drive particularly safely, sometimes). Of course, the key to this is to keep people believing that there's something real going on. With Xero, there are serious questions about the company's business model to offer free mobile service to people who will watch advertisements, and the company hasn't actually come anywhere near launching anything. Yet, today, they announce that even though they don't actually have anything, or any proof that the business model works, they're ready to license it out to others around the world. Notice that they don't actually name anyone they've licensed it to -- which is normally how these kinds of announcements work. Instead, they have nothing to offer, no deal signed... and they still figured out how to get press out of it.

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9 Comments

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Dom, 9 Jun 2006 @ 8:56pm

Hey, they know how to spin the publicity, at least...
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Floyd, 10 Jun 2006 @ 3:34am

I wish...
I wish I was in charge of a scam artist company so that I could afford to wreck an enzo!
Gizmondo Disaster
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dorpus, 10 Jun 2006 @ 8:13am

Xeroderma Pigmentosa
Is the name of the disease that causes people to get severe sunburns immediately when exposed to sunlight.
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- True Believer, 11 Jun 2006 @ 12:36pm
  
  Re: Xeroderma Pigmentosa
  wtf?
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- R. P., 11 Jun 2006 @ 5:31pm
  
  Re: Xeroderma Pigmentosa
  Xero (pronounced "zeh' - ro") comes originally from greek, meaning "dry"... Therefore, it seems to me that the founders are probably using what they perceive to be a clever play on words, using XERO as a kind of euphemism for "zero" meaning nothing, or "xero" (as in greek) as a "dry well". Either way, there's nothing there, and I feel no pity for the idiots who would fall prey to such a spun-up work as that.
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e, 11 Jun 2006 @ 1:24pm

Xero's latest plan
This is just another scam like so many others that spawn from the 'net/technology.
I worked for a company that was developing "full speed" videophone communications using the same business model.
In the end, the founder traveled the world, lived in lavish excess, spent a fortune in Las Vegas, etc.
Unfortunately, the investors (mostly retired people who bet their retirements) never realized anything but a constant stream of broken promises.
Anybody who foists one of these schemes on a gullible and technologically naive group of investors should be sentenced to making boulders into gravel at a penny a pound until they have repaid every bit of money they have bilked from the public.
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Son of Evolution, 11 Jun 2006 @ 2:32pm

if.......
If the public is dumb enough not to do their due dilligence, then rob the weak of mind.... its the American way, they deserve it, and Darwin and God both say its ok.
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Dave, 12 Jun 2006 @ 6:23am

Resurgence of the dot.bubble
A lot of people were selling things of dubious value before the last dot.crash.. Something called genesiseurope.net was selling 45 Mb per sec without exchange access. through a standard phone line back in 2000. They did this through a secret patented method that no-one else had ever heard of. I wonder what they are selling now?

Domain Name: GENESISEUROPE.NET

Administrative Contact:
Keefe, Gary (GAKE100) info@genesiseurope.net
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Ted, 13 Jun 2006 @ 4:37am

Get rich or die trying
Nothing wrong with trying to get rich...doesnt matter how you do it just dont get caught like the Enrons.
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