Helio's Sky Dayton steps down as CEO

Sky Dayton, founder and chairman of the phantasmagorical Helio, has announced that he's stepping down as CEO to become chairman of the board of the last-man-standing MVNO. Helio's new CEO will be Wonhee Sull, formerly the company's president and COO, and obviously a direct conduit to co-owner SK Telecom. "Helio has reached a point in its development where I feel the timing is right for this change... As we have for the past three years, the two of us will continue to define Helio's direction and future," said Dayton. Whether Sky's really ready to move on or not we'll never know, but it's certainly possible that the recent influx of cash (and increased ownership) from its Korean parents and dwindling marketshare of US MVNOs led SK to step in and get things on track.

Update: Lots of fun inaccuracies going on up in here, our bad. We ironed out the kinks, see above for the latest, correct edits to Helio's executive musical chairs.

[Johan S @ Jan 28th 2008 8:37PM]

Dude, make a phone with a WVGA display please.

[JohnTitor @ Jan 28th 2008 10:20PM]

heck I'd be fine with VGA
but we need those higher up guys doing it first
like Nokia, HTC etc

[Nick @ Jan 28th 2008 8:37PM]

I can haz new ocean plz?

Seriously, I've had my Ocean for a while now and it's beginning to feel a bit dated with the flashy iPhone, Voyager, and SK LX on the block. I'd like a thinner form factor and a browser that doesn't suck the life out of every site by breaking it into about 9 or 10 pages.

[Allan @ Jan 28th 2008 9:01PM]

Not to mention sucking the life out of your battery. That's my biggest complaint with my Ocean. Its battery life contains much fail.

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 29th 2008 1:27AM]

New phones, please! I got into Helio because it seemed to be on the edge, with access to the good Korean stuff. I love my Drift, I like where the Mysto is going style-wise, but I'm really waiting for the Ocean replacement - which certainly needs to be an iPhone equal if not more. Helio, I know you could make us proud if the really tried...

(and bring back the 3G modems)

[Bravo @ Jan 28th 2008 8:39PM]

wow its been 3 years already? Wow time does fly by

[Mateo2 @ Jan 28th 2008 9:12PM]

I had an Ocean, briefly. Thank god for the 30 day "happiness guarantee". It's just too bad that they took 2 and a half months to refund my money.

The Ocean is a decent phone, but pretty wimpy on the hardware front. It plays videos worse than my 5 year old Palm Zire 71. Seriously, you have to encode at such a crappy resolution to get it to an acceptable framerate, at which point the video is nearly unwatchable anyways. The keyboard is pretty darn nice though.

[Edan Shekar @ Jan 28th 2008 9:26PM]

Is there anything this man does that makes anyone money, other then himself? He founded EarthLink, yeah, but ruined a great company, Mindspring. The stock tanked, they fired more then half the staff, and yet Sky still makes money, still remains, CEO, etc. He's a useless windbag. He was some sort of "wizz kid" who has long outlived his wizzy days and needs to fade into the history of failed internet companies.

[Smacksmackums @ Jan 28th 2008 9:34PM]

I'm no MBA but I know enough to know that when the company higher-ups are exchanging their job titles it's not a good sign. Probably just a quick move to help calm a brewing storm.

[Jamar @ Jan 28th 2008 10:51PM]

Well, now that a Korean is CEO, perhaps it will start to resemble SK Telecom more. First step- how about a bigger lineup, preferably more than 10 phones.

[Haxornick89 @ Jan 28th 2008 10:56PM]

Helio Sucks ASS i still haven't got my money back Fuck the happiness guarantee im pissed where the hell is my refund????

[tranism @ Jan 28th 2008 11:30PM]

If he's not already married, I'll date him.

[tranism @ Jan 28th 2008 11:31PM]

I take it back. Just found out he's a Scientologist.

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 29th 2008 1:32AM]

Great. Now the Thetans know about this thread. Way to go.

/would rather not upset Xenu

[spaceb @ Jan 28th 2008 11:43PM]

Is he old enough to buy alcohol?

[Dan Frommer @ Jan 28th 2008 11:51PM]

Hey guys, couple of factual points: First, Sky isn't becoming president, he's becoming non-executive chairman. Second, there are plenty of MVNOs left -- see publicly traded (and much bigger) Virgin Mobile USA, for example. Not sure where "last man standing" comes in.

[jason @ Jan 29th 2008 6:00AM]

I've had my Ocean for a while now and sadly there is STILL no firmware update. There are plenty of things not 'quite' right with the Ocean and at least ONE firmware update would've done wonders for my sense of security. Basically, it seems like they threw it out the door, said "Here's the Ocean! Enjoy!" then forgot about it.

[Smacksmackums @ Jan 29th 2008 9:53AM]

Well the edits to the story correcting the move to becoming just chairman of the board now make it more sound like he's slowly stepping away from this. Whatever though, HELIO ain't exactly number one...

[paul @ Jan 29th 2008 1:19PM]

Why didn't Engadget ever cover the Mysto release? I just visited their site and saw it. You do two or three posts about the rumor of the thing coming and then don't even tell me when it comes out? Get on the ball, Engadget.

[ken @ Jan 29th 2008 2:14PM]

Maybe Xenu told him about some great new telepathic communication system that would make cell phones obsolete.

Damn Scientologist! He is probably just as wacko as Tom Cruise, no wonder the company is floundering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCGP-0545EU


Ken

[MuffinFlavored @ Jan 31st 2008 4:08PM]

I have the Helio Ocean.
I also just ordered an iPhone.
Heavy, terrible firmware, peice of crap.

[gog @ Feb 4th 2008 10:23AM]

"Sky Dayton"? Can I say What an awesome name?!!!

What an awesome name! Totally sounds like something that came from a Japanese fantasy video game thing.