Last month, Grandeye, the 360 megapixel manufacturer, implemented major company restructuring. Below is a summary of what I know and feel confident in its truth. There is basically no public information available on this and everyone I talked to only spoke on condition of being off the record.  As such, be skeptical of what I report.

Grandeye Changes

• The CEO, Alexa McCulloch, is no longer at Grandeye.
• A number of UK employees have been released.
• The US sales team has been released.
• A new company is now involved - ONCAM GLOBAL.
• Jim Ionson, the former CEO of Remote Reality, is now the Chairman of Grandeye [Update 1/2/09].

A Grandeye source told me that the company is still in business and moving forward. The representatitve shared a statement with me that I have copied at the end of the message.  It does not comment on many specifics. Also, the Grandeye source would not address any of the claimed changes I list above.

I spoke with one Grandeye partner. That partner told me that Grandeye representatives were continuing to work with him and that they were continuing to move forward with Grandeye.

My Recommendations

Any Grandeye partner or potential customer should carefully and thoroughly understand the change in business operations.  It is clear that this is a very serious change and not the 10% or 20% layoff that has recently become common.

Grandeye offers promising technology that I have previously recommended. I still think the technology is promising. The products have received strong reviews from end users, integrators and manufacturing partners.

However, given the significant changes, those interested in 360 panoramic solutions should more carefully consider Immervision or the Mobotix Q22. The Q22 and Grandeye product are fairly similar. While Grandeye and Mobotix both offer panoramic cameras, Immervision offers panormatic lenses.

Final Notes

Of the many things I was told, these are the ones I feel comfortable sharing. While a number of explanations were provided to me about why this happened and how ONCAM Global is involved, I am not confident in the accuracy of these elements.

Lastly, below is the Grandeye statement (in full):

"We understand that there are some rumors circulating about Grandeye. First and foremost, we want to assure all interested parties that, while there are indeed some internal changes taking place, nothing will compromise our commitment to customers, partners and vendors.
 
Continual innovation in product development has been and always will remain the highest of priorities. This was demonstrated on October 9 when Grandeye was recognized at the 2008 Security Excellence Awards in London as "the manufacturer of a product which is  deemed to be ground-breaking in design," taking home the Security  Innovation of  the Year for its Halocam Compact IPC camera.  Grandeye beat out five other nominees, including Honeywell and Vista.

When we can elaborate with details about what's happening at Grandeye, we are confident that all our stakeholders will be as excited as we are about the future."