Remember the claims of cold fusion that fizzled when scientists tried to reproduce the results? In that light, Fusion Garage’s name may have proven prophetic, because instead of shipping the promised new Grid 10 tablet, Slashgear reports that the company has just gone into liquidation.

It turns out that there just weren’t enough pre-orders of the Grid 10 tablet to save the company, and it couldn’t secure additional funding—so instead of shipping the tablets (and sending a free one to everyone who bought the original Joo Joo) it went under, reportedly owing $40 million to creditors. (It was pretty clear when pre-orders were canceled and the website disappeared last month that something like this was coming.)

I expect to see Michael Arrington crowing about this on Uncrunched later today. Personally, I think he should be glad that Techcrunch doesn’t have any part of that mess (well, if he were still with Techcrunch, anyway). If they had kept up the association, guess where that $40 million would be coming from? Instead, Fusion Garage shoved Techcrunch out of the way and took that bullet itself—even if it didn’t necessarily intend to at the time.

(Found via Engadget.)

Update: As expected, Arrington has some things to say about the story—including calling attention to a tweet from Fusion Garage’s founder. Arrington writes:

In case it isn’t crystal clear, it looks like Fusion Garage is trying to get out of all that pesky debt, take as many employees as possible, and start a new company. This is what lawyers call fraud, which is exactly what I’ve been screaming for two years now.

Needless to say, Arrington is not the most unbiased of sources about the company. This does seem a little suspicious, though.

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