Sean and I sat through the press briefing by Fusion Garage’s Chandrasekar “Chandra” Rathakrishnan. It’s really hard to know who to believe in this, but what FG put forth today makes a lot of sense, and rings true with a lot of us over at SiliconANGLE as experienced entrepreneurs, if not as folks who know the character of Michael Arrington.

A year and a half ago, Mike set out to build and sell a web tablet for $200. I, like many others, applauded this sentiment.  Years ago, I had done this very same thing for a small marketing and development house, so I know it could be done, it just needed a much bigger name than I had access to at the time to promote the device. If Mike Arrington could make something happen in that respect, I’d put aside my past differences with the guy as a blogger and buy his device.

It wasn’t very long after the request for prototype that they announced they were cooking something up.

Chandra, in his press briefing, said unequivocally that they were “the doers, and Techcruch were the talkers.” According to Fusion Garage, they presented the prototype to Techcrunch after that blog post, and essentially said “this could be your Crunchpad, wanna help us out?”

This is probably where the story diverges.  If you believe Michael Arrington, Fusion Garage was then hired to be a contractor on the Crunchpad device. If you believe Fusion Garage, this is where a long stream of promises that were never fulfilled (including funding, acquisition, and development help).

John Furrier rightly pointed out that even though FG claims that they secured funding and attention through their own means and network, it was likely due to the association with Mike that allowed that to happen. He also made the point while we were talking that Chandra might not understand the gravity of letter agreements or implied and verbal contracts (I, myself, don’t know their legal standing in the state of California, but here in Texas I know we take them seriously).

Sean, though, also brought up a great point, which was along the lines of “We all know what sort of talker Mike is, and Chandra’s description of him rings fairly true; it’s all going to come down to who can produce the more compelling evidence on paper.  If Mike provides a contract or even a letter agreement, then this case is over.”

And that’s basically the long and the short of it. This will make for riveting blogospheric drama, but in the end it all comes down to the paperwork. If it truly was a contractual agreement (verbal, letter, or otherwise), then Michael has a case.  If not, get ready to say hello to the JooJoo

CrunchPad / JooJoo Coverage

Sean’s Liveblog of the Press Event

John’s /SABackchan Comments

Pre-Briefing Briefing

Coverage Around the Blogosphere

Venturebeat: Crunchpad manufacturer renames product JooJoo, promises launch this Friday at $499

Inquisitr: Fusion Garage Fights Back After Lopsided TechCrunch Story. Renames Device “JooJoo”

Gizmodo: Fusion Garage’s ‘Crunchpad’ Unveiling Liveblog [Crunchpad]