knight rider online

Hey all,

Kitt Rules here. With much sadness I regret to inform you that Mio USA, makers of the Knight Rider GPS by Mio, is no more. Our office was completely mismanaged by our headquarters in Taiwan and they decided that after our "failure", to let go of the majority of the staff. Three people remain to clean things up. Who knows how long they will last.

I've never seen a rise and fall so fast. We built a TON of momentum with the Knight Rider GPS product. It was a media darling. But, when you REFUSE to listen to the people who know the market, you will fail. And that's what happened. The KRGPS product sold well with no marketing behind it (thanks HQ). Despite all of the success we achieved, it could not undo the incompetence from our HQ. Mio USA itself did not fail, Mio as a whole failed Mio USA. What's worse is a lot of good people lost their jobs, not because of the economy, but because of ineptitude.

As far as I know there will still be support for the KRGPS product. Unfortunately the planned additional voices will no longer happen.

I want to personally thank each of you for your enthusiasm for this product. You guys made the experience completely worth while.

Kitt Rules

Wow, I'm so sorry about that. The economy stinks right now. Thanks for hanging out with us we appreciate it.

Man that sucks. Sorry dude.

Thanks for the update kittrules, sad to hear that this finally came into fruition. You and your colleague were fantastic to us and if only the rest of the organization shared your enthusiasm.

I did speak to Navtones this weekend at Knight Rider Festival and spoke to them about this. They are the ones that have the contract with William Daniels and licensed the voice to Mio. They did say that the exclusive license with Mio is over now (lapsed) and that they'll be offering the KITT voice for other devices (by TomTom, Graimen, etc) very very shortly.

For the device time is very short - so if you see one or have one already, pick another up cause once it's gone - it's gone.

Really Sorry to hear that, man!

That's awful news. This recession is hitting everyone!

I hope this doesn't sound terribly selfish - but perhaps in your dark hour you could find it in yourself to give me some advice. Basically, I'm in the middle of getting hold of a KRGPS, but I live in the UK. I was working on having someone in the US purchase the map update from Mio USA online a and send it to me so that I can use the device over here.

Will this still be feasible? Will it still be possible for US residents to purchase the map updates for this product?

Your thoughts are appreicated

Ryan

I was hoping they would pull through the onslaught of criticism they got when they where just starting. My KRGPS worked very well in Vegas . I hope other companies pick up where Mio left off in KR themed units though.

Now we all have a collector item .

Will there still be updates for the products out now?

Man I was just in Vegas Sue and it sure didn't look like the economy was hurting to me . Fremont was packed all week!?!?!

i had a feeling that it wouldn't be around much longer, i'm so glad that i went to radio shack and picked one up last month!

what does mio stand for just wondering

MR2NR wrote:I was hoping they would pull through the onslaught of criticism they got when they where just starting. My KRGPS worked very well in Vegas . I hope other companies pick up where Mio left off in KR themed units though.

Now we all have a collector item .

Will there still be updates for the products out now?

Man I was just in Vegas Sue and it sure didn't look like the economy was hurting to me . Fremont was packed all week!?!?!

He He. I said the same thing to Neil when we were at Vegas. People are very generous with their money there, especially if its to a charity. It was good to go and forget about the economy for a bit.

will i still get my trafic updates?

Well that's a bummer. I have one and dearly love it.

One thing I'm curious about is I registered my KRGPS to get a free 2009 map update, will I still get that?

Hey all! I believe that if you registered for your map update you will receive it. But, it's really hard to say because Mitac apparently won't be paying Navtones their royalties, so I wouldn't be surprised if they just say "screw it" to the map updates too.

I have no idea if they'll even continue support for any Mio GPS product. The Mio Estore is still up, so you might be able to purchase European maps for those folks in Europe who want a KRGPS before they shut that down too.

There is a news story today on GPS Business News that Mitac is shutting down Mio USA.

http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/Mio-clos ... ess%20News