Jolla, makers of the flexible Sailfish OS, started with an Indiegogo page and a dream back in 2014. From there, Sailfish OS kicked off a life of its own, ending up on a few devices both officially and unofficially. After a huge financial struggle due to funding delays that even resulted in layoffs and bankruptcy. With support from fans, the Finnish startup stayed strong during the defecit. After securing an undisclosed source of new funding, they were back in the game. A deal was recently struck with Indian manufacturer Intex Technologies to feature Sailfish OS on some of their devices, netting the firm even more publicity and capital. Original backers from the Indiegogo campaign, at some tiers, were promised a tablet made by Jolla, optimized to run the fledgling Sailfish OS the best way any hardware could run it. Back in October of 2015, some original backers did receive their promised tablet, but many did not due to the firm’s pressing financial constraints.
In a recent press release, Jolla representative Juhani Lassila stated that the tablet project, after being hit with all sorts of delays and changes due to the company’s financial woes, wound up on hiatus for a while. With the project back on, though somewhat scaled back, Lassila says that another small batch of tablets is going out to backers at some point in January of 2016. She revealed that not everybody who is entitled to a tablet will be getting one, although they will be getting something for their troubles.
She took a somewhat chipper tone to discuss the issue, saying, “The bad news here is that we are not able to complete the production to fulfill all contributions. In other words, all of our backers will not get a Jolla Tablet. However, you can be sure you will not end up empty handed. We might even have some positive surprises in stock for you. But more on that will follow, feel free to speculate!” Leaving the issue open for discussion by the community and Jolla itself, there is still a possibility that the originally planned run of tablets could turn up at some point, though it seems more likely that Jolla will have a surprise of a different sort for backers.