techcrunch-crunchpadThe much hyped Crunchpad, cheaper alternative to the Apple’s rumored MacTablet, has imploded.

Michael Arrington, the project’s founder and founder of Techcrunch has announced the news on a blog post titled “The End Of The CrunchPad“.

In it he describes how close the project was to completion, a week away in fact, but having come so close the project “self distructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication.”

It appears that beginning of the end came after shareholders of Fusion Garage (Arrington’s partner on the project) sent him notice that they would not want Arrington as part of the project and would essentially be going it alone without Techcrunch.

“Bizarrely, we were being notified that we were no longer involved with the project. Our project. Chandra said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.” Arrington says.

Chandra Rathakrishnan, Fusion Garage’s CEO, also forwarded an internal email from one of his shareholders, part of which Arrington highlights:

“We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavor…If he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don’t think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name.”

According to Arrington, while Techcrunch owns the Crunchpad trademark, both company’s own Crunchpad’s intellectual property. Meaning, Fusion Garage would legally not be able to sell the product without Arrington’s blessing – assuming of course, Arrington and Techcrunch have covered all their bases.

Attempts to resolve the situation have reportedly proved fruitless, “We’ve spent the last week and a half trying unsuccessfully to communicate with them. Our calls and emails go unanswered, so we can’t even figure out exactly what’s happened.” Arrington says.

More to come.