electronics . tiger telematics fate bankrupt founded 2000 ; 16 years ago 2000 as eagle eye scandinavian sweden defunct february 2006 2006 02 website web.archive.org web 20041214100823 http www.tigertelematics.com index.html tiger telematics or tiger was a swedish electronics company best known for the failed gizmondo handheld game console . 1 contents 1 history 1.1 gizmondo launch 2 organised crime links 3 bankruptcy 4 carl freer buys intellectual property assets 5 references 6 external links history edit in 2000 carl freer formed eagle eye scandinavian a small electronics distribution business in sweden . 2 in 2002 the company merged with floor d cor a carpet retailer based in jacksonville florida . 3 once that was completed floor d cor s michael carrender became the company s chief financial officer . the merged company soon renamed itself tiger telematics inc. with a new ticker symbol tigr . it made an attempt to take on sony and nintendo in the uk gaming market and relocated at an office near farnborough airfield . stefan eriksson who freer had met during a previous business visit was brought into the company with peter uf and johan enander . 4 gizmondo launch edit the gizmondo device made its debut as a concept product at the german cebit show in march 2004 when its european subsidiary was then known as gametrac europe before renaming itself as gizmondo europe . the company became known for its extravagant spending despite not yet making a profit let alone getting the gizmondo off the ground . it counts amongst its exploits buying out model agency isis and leasing a shop in regent street in london as its flagship showroom at a cost of 175 000 per annum . despite the losses tiger telematics gained continuing funding including 73.1 m worth of investment capital during 2005 and it issued some 24.7 m shares which brought in over 200m . the showroom also ran a launch party at the park lane hotel and its own store sparing no expense . the party was hosted by dannii minogue and tom green with performances by sting pharrell busta rhymes and jamiroquai . 5 sting was rumored to be paid 750 000 for the performance . in an attempt to promote the product eriksson competed at the 24 hours of le mans in the gizmondo sponsored ferrari 360 modena gtc in 2005 but retired in the morning with mechanical troubles . in august 2004 the company announced it was buying swedish games developer indie studios which had already agreed to create two titles for the handheld . organised crime links edit in october 2005 shortly after gizmondo was released in america a swedish yellow page paper printed a story linking stefan eriksson and two other swedish gizmondo europe executives to the swedish crime ring uppsalamaffian uppsala mafia . 6 7 the paper investigated a six months loss of 200 million dollars exhibiting large payouts to later bankrupt entities . further the trio s felonious history was revealed such as eriksson s 10 year prison sentences in 1993 94 for among other things conspiracy to pass counterfeit currency and attempted fraud and the fact that johan enander was wanted by the swedish police . in light of these findings eriksson and others resigned . 8 one of those resignations came from carl freer the chairman of the board and a director who co owned with eriksson northern lights software limited . freer had previously sold luxury cars in france germany and the u.k. some of which turned out to have been stolen . in an interview for realtid.se 9 he claimed that he had no knowledge about that and that it back then was very hard to verify if a car bought from another country was stolen or not . at one point he stopped a check to a german seller since he suspected him of having delivered a stolen car not knowing that it was a crime in germany to stop a check once you had accepted delivery . northern lights was paid a large sum of money to create chicane and colors two gizmondo games that were actually developed by gizmondo europe itself . 10 freer paid the money back to gizmondo in order to stop an investigation into the matter . the gizmondo company itself denied knowing anything about eriksson s past . in addition gizmondo paid 4m to games factory publishing for nineteen concept games on the handheld including a game called typing tutor despite having no keyboard peripheral 5.9 m to electronic arts to port its ssx and fifa games and 3.5 m to northern lights to develop colors an urban gang warfare first person perspective shooter and chicane a formula one racing game being developed exclusively for gizmondo which was in fact developed by other indie studios . around march 2005 us based tiger telematics bought uk stock market listed games developer warthog for almost 500 000 tiger shares and 1.13 m in cash altogether worth 8.1 m. acquiring all of warthog s operating subsidiaries along with the group s debts and warthog s ceo ashley hall coo steven law and cfo simon elms to become tiger employees . warthog s team also has close ties with key games publishers and game franchise owners . bankruptcy edit on january 23 2006 the uk based arm gizmondo europe ge declared bankruptcy . gizmondo hemorrhaged hundreds of millions of dollars before filing for bankruptcy in 2004 tiger telematics reported a loss of 99.29 million and between january and september 2005 they lost 210 million principally due to development costs for the gizmondo and non cash expenses associated with shares of restricted common stock issued for services . in other words it had bartered shares in lieu of cash payments . soon after gizmondo retail locations in both the us and the uk closed and the gizmondo website was shut down . the game development arm of gizmondo also went out of business . the company was also involved in litigation . swedish ogilvy group mtv europe christian and timbers landlord to their office handheld gaming and jordan grand prix all filed million dollar lawsuits against the company . gizmondo is currently under investigation in the uk for approximately 25 30 million owed to hm revenue and customs . in early february 2006 the high court appointed two liquidators . david rubin & partners was to deal with the sale of the company s assets thought to amount to little more than the furniture in its regent street showroom and begbies traynor was asked to investigate exactly where gizmondo s money had gone . the 27 staff remaining at gizmondo s head office in farnborough and five at its london store were made redundant . no gizmondo accounts for 2005 have been published . but internal figures show sales of just 1.4 m in the first nine months of the year . losses were equivalent to 500 000 a day . directors salaries amounted to 6.6 m for the nine months . leasing cars cost 2m plus . the console was deemed the worst console of all time by gametrailers because they claimed it drove tiger into bankruptcy . 11 carl freer buys intellectual property assets edit in november 2007 carl freer stated in an interview with the swedish american journalist hans sandberg that he was interested in starting up production of the gizmondo again . 9 in april 2008 a press release was issued that an agreement had been reached between the joint liquidators of gizmondo europe ltd in liquidation and one of the company s ex directors carl freer . the press release originated as a low quality copy of a letter purported to be from one of the accounting firms handling the insolvency posted to a file sharing site . according to mr freer the shareholders of tiger telematics will now be able to prosper on the re introduction of the gizmondo into the market . 12 the new system never appeared . 13 the original planned launch date was may 2008 14 but this was quickly pushed back to november 2008 15 along with details of a new company media power behind the launch headed by carl freer and his swedish partner mikael ljungman with development apparently proceeding according to the new schedule at least until september . 16 by december 2008 the console had still not appeared and another announcement was made about a complete redesign as a windows ce or google android powered smart phone . 17 since then the media power website has gone offline and co founder mikael ljungman has been arrested and convicted of serious fraud . 18 references edit lin thomas 2 june 2010 . fast times at tiger telematics high . venture beat . retrieved 22 december 2013 . wired 14.10 gizmondo s spectacular crack up . wired . floor d cor now tiger telematics . south florida business journals . 5 june 2002 . retrieved 24 december 2013 . anthony james ; michael gillard 2006 05 21 . the firm that blew it all in two years . london the sunday times . gizmondo launch brings london s west end to a standstill . pr newswire . march 21 2005 . retrieved 17 august 2015 . aftonbladet direkt rerna har f tt l nga f ngelsestraff gamespot news the definitive source for video game news announcements ship dates rankings sales figures and more tony smith 2005 10 27 . gizmondo executives quit under a cloud . the register . a b carl freer startar om gizmondo . realtid.se . 2007 11 13 . tiger telematics quarterly report for q1 2005 . gt countdown top ten worst consoles . purported letter from paul davis of begbies traynor one of the joint liquidators of gizmondo europe . joseph flatley 2008 12 20 . surprise no new gizmondo for 2008 . engadget . retrieved 2008 12 02 . carl freer i m going to resurrect gizmondo indeed he is . engadget . 2008 01 24 . retrieved 2009 07 09 . carl freer gizmondo arrives late 2008 . 2008 02 18 . retrieved 2009 07 09 . the nordic link gizmondo 2 is here sales start in november december . 2008 09 10 . retrieved 2009 07 09 . gizmondo 2 turns into a smartphone . 2008 12 22 . retrieved 2009 07 09 . bagger points finger at swedish partner . copenhagen post . 2009 06 10 . retrieved 2009 07 09 . external links edit official website archive retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title tiger 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