Well, only Outlaw and Sherwood/Inkel (or whatever that outfit calls itself these days) knows for sure what the terms of their agreement stipulated. If I was a betting man, I'd guess there was a "drop dead" clause in there somewhere that gave Outlaw an "out" if Sherwood didn't meet some specific delivery timeline or quality benchmark by X date. That might also help explain Sherwood's "rush" to get the thing out the door even though there clearly were remaining usability issues.

Whatever the reason, it's now over and it cost Outlaw a lot of lost sales and a hit to their credibility with their existing customer base. A credible processor offering is key to the success of their other lines of re-branded equipment that rely on a processor to be the brains of the home theater system....hence their resale of Onkyo processors in the interim.

If Outlaw was a traditional manufacturing company, I'd say they were sure to fail after such a spectacular flub that dragged out for more than a year. But they seem to be mostly "virtual" and perhaps their fixed operating costs are low enough to survive this current sales slump until they get something else of note into their pipeline. A tough row to hoe, but not impossible.