Google Chromecast delay -- production or legal or hardball?

It may have been a data input error or perhaps Amazon has been hacked, but I received an email on August 8 saying the Google Chromecast I had ordered on July 27 would be delivered in mid October.

I checked the Amazon Web site, and, sure enough they were now saying it "usually ships in 2-3 months:"

As we noted last week, the first production run sold out in a few days, and, at the time I placed my order, they said it would ship in 3-4 weeks:

On August 3, they seemed to be on schedule:

This is a simple electronic device -- why are they having so much trouble?  Why did the shipping date slip?  Are they poor production planners?  Having trouble getting parts?  Having legal problems? Playing hardball with Amazon?

If it is legal problems, it may be a trademark conflict with Chromecast.com, a Web development company.  Here is their Web site:

Note the link to legal information near the bottom of the screen.  Follow the link and you will see a lot of legal information.  There is also some very faint black-on-blue text at the bottom of the page.  It is illegible on my display, but here is what it says:

© 2013 Chromecast Inc. All rights reserved. Chromecast, Chromecast Digital Media, chromeTone, The rADium LDAP suite, and project|aurora, are trademarks of Chromecast Inc. and may not be used without written permission.

Did Google forget to get that written permission? If so, the can always change the name to "Metro."

Perhaps they are just playing hardball with Amazon.  It turns out the Google Play Web site still says the Chromecast ships in 2-3 weeks.  If they cut Amazon's quota to induce people like me to cancel their Amazon orders and order from the Google Play Store, they may gain a few sales, but, as a Google customer, that strikes me as doing evil.

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Update 8/9/2013

At first I thought my Amazon delivery date may have been an error, but a day later, Google is still promising 2-3 weeks for shipping, Amazon 2-3 months and Best Buy is just out of stock period:

This pisses me off a bit and must also rankle Amazon.  At $35, there cannot be much (any?) profit in a Chromecast, so it seems foolish.  I guess Google wants me to cancel my Amazon order, but I'll wait till Amazon ships it in October.

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Update 8/10/2013

Amazon sent out an email saying "customers who placed orders prior to August 7 should receive their orders in the coming weeks and into mid-September." The expected ship date for new orders remains 2-3 months.

Chromecast blunders -- does Google need a few MBAs?

Google's new Chromecast, a device for streaming video on a TV set, might turn out to be terrific, but they have bungled the marketing and production.

I was on the Yet Another Tech Show podcast Wednesday and, based on what they had read, all the panelists agreed that Google's new Chromecast was a terrific product at a no-brainer price.  So, being a cord cutter, I ordered one.

After I placed my order, I learned that I had missed the deadline for a three-month Netflix credit premium. I was satisfied with the purchase at first, but now I am somewhat pissed at Google for giving all those folks who ordered a few days earlier a better deal.

It also turned out that Google blew the production planning -- my Chromecast is expected to ship in three or four weeks.

I came across a tweet saying that nearly 250,000 people had ordered them before the Netflix promotion was pulled -- who plans logistics and production?

I had to wait, but it will be worth waiting for, right? I hope so, but astute blogger Bob Cringley suspects that the Google demo overstated the capability of the Chromecast and when I checked the customer reviews on Amazon, I found that, while most are favorable, there is some dissent.  Some folks could not get it to work, experienced poor quality audio or video or discovered that they needed a second port to power the device if they had an older TV with pre-version 1.4 HDMI ports.

I didn't cancel my order -- I still hope to love the thing, but I can't help wondering if Google, with all their PhD engineers and scientists couldn't use a few more folks with MBAs in production management and marketing. Remember the Nexus Q?