We only know that the “public” beta units did not ship. There could well be a 2, 10, or 20 people testing under NDA, we would never know.
As @jacobturner says, plan for the worst and you will be happy with any surprises.
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Actually we don’t know that no beta units have shipped.
We do know that no public betas have shipped, or hadn’t at last notification. An important distinction.
Developmental delays are always possible, but dan has been on top of it, and if any variable will pose a delay I expect he would make us aware of it as soon as that was clear to him.
Besides he thermal profile for the respective units, and perhaps the camera imaging systems feature set, as Jacob said the rest is pretty straightforward.
unless Dan comes through with a delay update, I fully expect to receive my unit by the end of June… however… this is Earth, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that - and that’s why we put that little piece of rubber on the end of a pencil. 
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It might be useful to understand that no company big or small will announce a schedule impact until there is no reasonable possibility of keeping to schedule or minimizing the impact. I guess what I’m saying is that if a company is only 75% sure the schedule is at risk it still makes no sense to announce a slide that may not occur. Companies don’t announce problems based on probabilities. That’s one of the reasons why schedule slides are always announced way later than many customers think is justified. But it is the best business decision in the long run. Everyone has a different risk threshold. Each of us must decide for ourselves.
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No, you don’t plan for it to be a year late. You plan for it to be on the timeframe specified by the project. You plan on having transparency from the glowforge team to communicate the delays and expectations in a timely fashion.
Very different story if you have “please pre-order and get something in 2 years!” rather than its a few months out.
Yes, delays can happen. If your risks aren’t retired enough, you shouldn’t be planning dates until they are.
It doesn’t take till the end of May to know that the product won’t ship in June. Share the dates, share the progress, and everyone can decide for themselves. Its been almost 3 weeks since the last update from Dan. I would expect that the team would be releasing one in the next week or 2.
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I’m hoping they will get units out in June. However, when I placed my order, my expectation was I would not get it until August or September 2016.
I would prefer the Glowforge team to work on manufacturing and getting a really good product made rather than spending time and energy trying to give us continuous updates.
“Transparency” is a double edged sword. If they keep us updated on every small set back, then there will be a lot of people out in the interwebs pestering them with a bunch of questions on non-issues. They then have to spend more time addressing these questions. If there is a big issue that will effect there schedule, they will let us know.
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This response is a bit on the offensive. So I am pre-appologizing. I don’t mean to belittle your position or thoughts. To me though, this line of complaint is akin to saying that a sports team shouldn’t be telling their fans that they are going to win the game until they KNOW they are going to win the game.
This is the age of the pre-order. People need to figure out how to evaluate a business, or stop investing. Your sentiment screams old-school expectations to me. Mass production is a unique beast, and if a company has not mass produced the kind of equipment they are planning to create… they likely still need to understand that there is a significant gulf between prototype and manufacturable.
Unless a pre-order clearly states that they have already obtained a multitude assembly line produced units, no dates are anything more than wishful thinking.
Complaints about pre-order campaigns which do not deliver on time are prolific. When a single complaint is made that often in that many unrelated areas, it should be taken as a solid indicator that there is need for a cultural shift.
I understand some people will never shift their mentality. But those people will continue to be disappointed, because they really should not be participating in pre-order activities.
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Well, when you place you order based on “Shipping in December”, you have already been disappointed that shipping has slipped to late June. Most of us missed the “" at the end of "Shipping in December” because there was no fine print that said, “* Beta Units Shipping in late December- Preorders will ship by the end of June”
I did some poking around the forums and figured they were going to have a few machines out, by the end of Dec, and the rest would trickle out as built. I also expected that at the end of the preorder campaign, that the pricing would go back up to retail, or at least near retail.
I agree that the expectation be that the Manufacturer should hold to it’s announced schedule, at least as close as possible. To be happy if a unit ships within a year of ordering is dangerous. From what I have seen the longer a crowdfunded project pushes back delivery, the less likely people receive finished product. This isn’t a $20 Arduino WiFi thingamabob, it’s a much bigger investment for most of us.
At some point I would imagine there will be some regulation on crowdfunding if too many of the “Too big to fail” Crowdfunded campaigns end badly.
I await the next update from Dan and the team with great antici…
pation.
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I fully realize that this next ‘story’ is not quite the same thing in many ways, but I couldn’t help but think of it. A couple years ago, my husband dutifully saved all of his music gig money and put it into an envelope to go towards having a '63 VW bug restored. If anyone has seen the Jack Nicolson movie, “As Good as it Gets”, we adopted the term for our cash envelope from that…and called it our ‘sweaty wad’.
This was a great way to do it so it didn’t come out of our own limited monthly income. My husband had a ‘friend’ who had years of experience in auto restoration and he said he could do the work. The estimate was around $6k and the timeline given was about 3 months. We paid an upfront amount, then doled money out when ‘Jack’ needed more parts, etc. My husband showed unrestrained patience and understanding, though various delays, brought on by any number of issues. In addition to the ‘sweaty wad’ envelope, he traded two of his guitars and sold a third guitar and a vintage Fender amp to help pay for this work. After hundreds of excuses and reasons and not 3 months, but two years, I finally convinced him that we needed to just get the car back. No more open-ended stuff to endure. We were trusting, confident, and very hopeful…not to mention not in a hurry. And irony made itself known when during all this time, my husband had to relinquish his privilege to drive. He never got to drive his restored car and ended up feeling foolish and used. We had few updates on the progress, not one single photograph of any of the work (it was being done in another city), and lots of half-assed reasons why it was taking so long. We now have the car in our driveway. Work was done on it, but it’s still unfinished. Now that I’m writing this, I’m not sure why I related to this post with this story, except to say that I feel in no way that the Glowforge experience is even close to what I’ve described here. We don’t have lots of money to throw around either, but I have not one nagging doubt nor feeling of insecurity about what I have backed with it…not to mention, until it ships, I can get my money back. That wasn’t an option when we were paying for the car. I have no feelings whatsoever that I have been either misled or misinformed about any part of this whole campaign. Unlike my usual self, I did not feel the need for instant gratification and am willing to wait patiently. Having the Glowforge in my little workroom will more than alleviate any pangs of impatience. Sorry for the long post. 
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Point of clarification: this is not a crowdfunded project. Glowforge was fully funded from investors before the pre-order period even began, so there is considerably less risk here than in a more traditional crowdfunding where the only money the company has is from the orders people have placed.
I originally expected our Glowforge to arrive in the February-March timeframe, but that was based on the assumption that they would be starting to ship production units at the beginning of the year. I have no issue with the fact that it has moved back a few months from what I assumed, because that date was nothing more than my own assumption based on insufficient accurate detail at that time (early October). Also, their explanations of the reasons for the delays have been completely satisfactory for me. I am glad they chose not to ship units with a substandard power supply just to meet an unrealistic timeline that they never had any intention or expectation to meet in the first place. They need to get the hardware right before they start mass production. The software side needs to be functional, but can be improved over time without significant inconvenience for us.
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Best point there Xabbess - Money back until it ships.
With that guarantee, it is our prerogative, nobody is out anything except their hopes.
We all feel the frustration of our anticipation. There’s another guarantee for you.
Sad tale there girl. I feel for you, and especially your Husband. I disassembled and restored my '66 Mustang, built my dream. Criminal for someone to step on his like that. Do you still have it?
Edit; i see it is in your driveway, any further plans?
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The bug belonged to our daughter and son-in-law, and since Jim had always wanted one, they added his name to the title as a birthday gift…along with the go-ahead to do whatever he wished with it. So technically, it belongs to all three people. Our son-in-law was very gracious and understanding about what had occurred, and has come up with a few ideas on how to move forward. Next thought is to haul it back out to their farm when they have a suitable space in which to store it and maybe get more restoration work finished on it. Needless to say, our friendship with Jack…the guy who led us on the merry chase…fell by the wayside. And in fairness, we never believed that Jack was being dishonest with us and never felt that he cheated us monetarily…but that he really just bit off more than he could chew and couldn’t seem to climb out of the hole.
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The biggest obstacle to shipping could be the fact that 3/4 of the company is stuck in an elevator. Will they get out before June? Will they need to cut their way out with a modified Glowforge? Stay tuned…
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This needs to be a new topic. I’ll start a Gofundme! 
#savetheglowforgeteam[quote=“jkopel, post:15, topic:1647”]
The biggest obstacle to shipping could be the fact that 3/4 of the company is stuck in an elevator. Will they get out before June? Will they need to cut their way out with a modified Glowforge? Stay tuned…
[/quote]
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The shipping update refers to “Crowdfunding Campaign”.
Dan Shipiro’s LinkedIn profile says “Dan Shapiro is the CEO and cofounder of Glowforge, the 3D laser printer. Glowforge is the biggest crowdfunding campaign in history, with $27.9M in preorders in 30 days.” True not all of the funds were raised from the crowd.
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This thread has been an interesting read (not least of which the bug story - I owned a bug a long time ago - loved that car - a really feel for you) but I think there is one more thing that could be added. I think everyone here, on both sides, has made excellent points and certainly none of you are ‘wrong’ in any sense.
But these issues are often ‘grey’. While I am not foaming at the mouth that I don’t yet have my glowforge, the initial rhetoric did lead me to believe they would start shipping shortly after December. That may be my error but I think it is much more a lack of clarity on the part of Glowforge. Or possibly just the ‘marketing speak’ not matching the technical detail, both of which were published at some point.
They have now said end of June but official announcements have died a death and the lack of updates has me worried. I understand that it might not be in the company’s best interests to keep us updated on every little problem but they have to understand that there is a cost to that silence. My trust and excitement is being eroded. It is slowly being replaced with worry.
To finish, I’m not about to cancel my glowforge yet, I’m still making plans of what to make, I’m still reading these forums and enjoying the anticipation. I’m patiently waiting for my GF and crossing my fingers that I will receive it sometime in July (I’m in the UK so shipping will take time) but I’m also worrying more than I was.
In short, @Dan has been great about whipping up a frenzy but maybe not so great at replacing the frenzy with patience. If you get a chance Dan, I think a lot of us would really like a little more reassurance. Even if it becomes repetitive. We need someone to tell us it’s going to be alright.
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I love it when people try to demand “transparency.” Few people are ready to handle the daily sliding risks involved with each component of the product. If GF was TRANSPARENT people would be complaining that they didn’t have a clue what was going on. There is always a balancing act of who to tell what when.
I’m good with the level of information I have. Fingers crossed for June 2016!
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After 30 odd years of work life, my experience is that you will find people chomping at the bit to give you good news, but waiting until the bus is about to run off the edge of a cliff before spitting out the bad stuff. June?!! I think that’s probably all but a dream at this point. 
But I’m OK with that. I’d rather have the kick ass product a year late than not at all.
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I can totally relate to your story. I Own a '55 and a '69 Beetle, but I also own a '81 VW Pick-up that I brought to a local man who gave me a ‘great quote’ on a full restoration and a 3 month time frame. It is 2 years later and I am still trying to get him to finish the work. There’s always excuses and reasons, but it is very unpleasant being on the receiving end them.
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