![]() ![]() The Tag will be shown at DEMO, a high-profile technology conference in Palm Desert, Calif. “LeapFrog needs this to redefine their leadership in the reading market.” “Tag needs to be successful,” said Sean McGowan, an analyst with Needham & Company. Katz’s turnaround strategy is a string of products that LeapFrog plans to introduce in the next few months. On Friday, he announced another 85 layoffs amounting to about 10 percent of the company’s workforce.īut the linchpin of Mr. Katz, the former chief executive of the online travel booking service Orbitz, who became LeapFrog’s chief executive in the summer of 2006, has helped rein in expenses and resolve long-standing inventory and manufacturing problems. LeapFrog shares closed Friday at $5.81, almost 90 percent below their October 2003 peak.Īnalysts say Mr. LeapPad sales plunged and the company racked up losses that, in the past two years alone, are expected to top $200 million. While LeapFrog has introduced several other award-winning products, none matched the LeapPad in sales or profitability. Katz, the chief executive of LeapFrog.įor investors, the LeapFrog story quickly turned from fairy tale to bad dream. That makes it far more portable and easier to use than the LeapPad, says Jeffrey G. It works on books whose pages are imprinted with invisible dots that allow a small infrared camera at the tip of the Tag to recognize words or images on the page. ![]() At its simplest, the Tag can also act as an audio book and simply read a story from beginning to end.īut while the LeapPad system required spiral-bound books to be placed on a clunky, laptop-sized plastic console with a pointing device attached to it, LeapFrog has put all of the Tag’s smarts into the inch-and-a-half-thick stylus. Interactive games test their reading comprehension. They can tap on an image to hear a character’s voice come alive. Children can tap a word with it and the stylus reads the word, or its definition, aloud. The Tag, officially called the Tag Reading System, works a lot like the LeapPad. It calls the Tag its “biggest launch ever.” LeapFrog is betting that the $50 Tag, which will be available this summer along with an 18-volume library that includes children’s classics like “The Little Engine That Could” and “Olivia,” will be the hit it badly needs. This week, LeapFrog pulls the wraps off the LeapPad’s successor, the Tag, a thick, white and green plastic stylus that turns paper books into interactive playthings. But as the LeapPad aged, LeapFrog’s fortunes sagged. The company’s LeapPad became an instant sensation after it was introduced in 1999 and helped turn the small educational toy maker into one of the fastest-growing toy companies in history. EMERYVILLE, Calif.- LeapFrog Enterprises needs a knockout hit.
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