Momenta’s Demise

About a week after publication of our August issue, Momenta’s meteoric foray into the pen computer market quietly ended as the company dismissed its remaining employees and went out of business. While this may be old news, Momenta’s demise serves as an important lesson to other companies getting started in this industry.

To put it bluntly, Momenta did everything wrong. Although the machine suffered from serious technical shortcomings (see our February 1992 issue), the company rushed the machine to market and literally spent millions on lavish advertisements, press events and convention booths to promote the machine. The company sent out elegant press kits in black and gold boxes. Momenta’s stationery included two-colored envelopes with black interiors and letter paper with the back side finished in black. The machine itself was packaged elaborately and included a slick user’s manual that looked like it had been designed for display at the Guggenheim museum (unfortunately, it was impossible to find anything in this artistic masterpiece).

The lesson is clear. If Momenta had spent all that money on more research and development and had taken a few more months to correct the deficiencies of the machine, the company would probably still be in business. This was a case of putting the cart before the horse. You need a solid product before you embark on a promotional spending spree.

In any case, Momenta’s demise is a shame. The company had some good ideas and some innovative technology, particularly the Smalltalk based software development environment. Let’s hope that the engineering team at Momenta can apply their efforts somewhere else and eventually turn some of those ideas into a good product.