[Marketing] Competitive Landscape: LeapPad Explorer tablet from Leapfrog

[Ron Feigenblatt]

Hello,

Let me emphasize the long experience of LeapFrog in this marketplace.
Sean's citations state that

http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/leapfrog/50860/
"LeapFrog is based in Emeryville, California and was founded in 1995
by a father who revolutionized technology-based learning solutions to
help his child learn how to read."

and

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/15/idUS11647+15-Feb-2011+PRN20110215
"LeapFrog created the first interactive learning experience with our
original iconic LeapPad® Learning System in 1998. After 10 years of
research into the most proficient ways for children to learn, we are
doing it again with LeapPad Explorer"

At the risk of boring you guys with ancient history, below I copy some
e-mail I exchanged about LeapFrog almost a decade ago with an
entrepreneur and then-recently retired Intel manager. (He told me that
as a newly-minted ChemE PhD, he had worked on the 1103; as a high
school senior, I used to drool thinking about those...)

Date: Mon Apr 08 03:14:52 2002
To: ---
From: R I Feigenblatt
Subject: kids and "low-end laptops"

Hey ---,

1. Using audio to teach visual reading: Do you know what a LeapFrog
LeapPad[] is? It's an interactive device that teaches kids to read.
When they get stumped by a word, they can touch it
with a stylus and hear the word spoken aloud. In promoting TTS, you
might emphasize how successful this toy has been.

====

Date: Fri May 10 00:42:29 2002
To: ---
From: R I Feigenblatt
Subject: LeapPads

In my e-mail of Mon, 08 Apr 2002 03:14:52 -0400, I introduced the
LeapPad into our chat, which got you rather excited... Now MSNBC is
running a Reuters article profiling the gadget and its company, here:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/749973.asp

Excerpts:

"The LeapPad is a 2-pound, 10-ounce electronic book reader that starts
at about $50. Children can learn at their own pace, either with an
adult or on their own, using a radio-controlled stylus that
calculates the sweep of a user’s hand across the pages of
interchangeable paper books that fit snugly inside the reader.
Additional books cost between $10 and $15 per title...

"LeapPad’s computer-in-disguise last year ranked as the best-selling
toy for children ages 4 to 10 among U.S. retailers..

"LeapFrog shot up to become the No. 4 U.S. toy company from No. 23 two
years ago, with sales of $313.7 million in 2001. In 2-1/2 years
LeapFrog has sold 5 million LeapPad electronic readers and 6.5 million
related book titles, the company said..."

====

Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 07:11:45 -0700
From: ---
To: R I Feigenblatt
Subject: Re: LeapPads et alia

Yesterday we went to a bitrthday party for another relative, a 3 year
old Vietnamese kid, and I gave the kid the Leap Pad you told me about.
Well, it turns out that the kid that taught himself to read the
alphabet by age 2 in a family that speaks almost no english and never
works with him on anything
did it with the Leap Pad, the one for younger kids and sells for $29.

I tell you, this is something that can allow us to subvert the world
if we try to use it that way. It can have kids speaking english by the
time they are 6 in a family that speaks no english and I bet in a
country where English is not spoken...

====

Date: Mon May 13 00:08:45 2002
To: "companion13" <companion13 at attbi.com>
From: R I Feigenblatt <docdtv at earthlink.net>
Subject: demo time -  need handout

At 07:11 AM 5/12/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Yesterday we went to a bitrthday party for another relative, a 3 year old Vietnamese kid, and I gave the kid the Leap Pad you told me about...

Glad to hear it is as useful as the mass media reports seem to indicate.
...

====

Ron