Yes. The hype got too big too fast.

Who was responsible? Dustin Hubbard, Group Manager over on the Mobile PC team. He explains what happened on the Origami team blog. He tells how he didn’t plan for the hype to get so out of control.

I was on several radio stations this morning pimping my book and a few of the hosts asked me about Origami. One said “I heard about it on Paul Harvey.” (Paul Harvey is probably the most respected radio voice in America).

And, with that, this will be my last Origami post until I get my hands on a production unit.

Update: long-time industry analyst Amy Wohl writes that my Channel 9 interview with Otto is a “kind of anti-hype.” Thanks Amy!

The video I shot of Otto Berkes, architect of the Ultra-Mobile PC team (now general manager) is now up on Channel 9.

Update: John Tokash, director of software development at Homestead Technologies, watched the full video already and says “Great stuff.”

Michael Gartenberg also has his first take analysis up. He’s had a pre-production Intel unit in his hands for a while.

Origami Portal already has a step-by-step analysis of my interview with Otto.

Yeah, looks like Gizmodo is reporting that we’ve gotten our evil back. Whew, just in time! Implies that Origami is just a glorified media player with nasty DRM.

Unfortunately, the truth isn’t so fun. Origami devices (there are more than one) run the same Windows Tablet PC Edition that my full scale Tablet PC is running. So, the DRM story is no different on Origami than it is on any Windows laptop or Tablet PC. If your MP3s play on a Windows XP device, they’ll play just fine on an Origami device.

Damn, I was so looking forward to running with the Microsoft is evil theme some more. I was getting tired of our competitors having all the evil fun.

One of the questions I ask in the video with Origami’s architect, Otto Berkes, was “who will hate Origami?”

Now we have our answer, thanks to CNET News.com: Bloggers!

OK, now that we got that out of the way, see ya in the morning tomorrow (I hear that we’ll be able to post the video by about 1 a.m.). I’m just snowed under with emails in the meantime. Sigh.

Update: Engadget has a first look at the Samsung version.

CNBC has video of the Origami. Well, one of them. Channel 9 will have almost an hour with Origami’s architect, Otto Berkes. I hear I should be able to post that video at about 3 a.m. Pacific Time on Thursday morning. We’ll have a MUCH more in depth look at Origami (there isn’t just one, by the way, CNBC has different one than Channel 9 will show off).

Origami:

It’s not an iPod killer.
It’s not a portable Xbox.
It’s not an OQO killer.
It’s not a PSP killer.
Update: it’s not a Nokia N90 killer either (thanks to Marc Canter for asking about that).
Update 2: it’s not a Treo 700w killer either (thanks to Dave for pointing that out).
Update 3: hey, PalmAddicts, it’s not a Palm killer either.

So, what is Origami?

Visit http://channel9.msdn.com on Thursday and you’ll see.

I am going to buy one. With my own money.