Amazon Echo / Dot and Sonos Integration

Wow, great announcement! Predictably, it took only minutes for the whining to commence, lol.

You call it whining, I call it speculation. Taking everything at face value makes for pretty dull discussion.

You call it whining, I call it speculation. Taking everything at face value makes for pretty dull discussion.

Nope, when its the same lame retort, time after time, no matter the circumstances, it's whining. You have a specific complaint, you apply it to everything, and you beat it into shoeleather. Own it.

Well, SONOS new CEO had a front row seat for the rise and fall of BlackBerry. He wasn't in charge, but he was high enough up the food chain to see the mistakes being made. It would be interesting to know what his views were at the time on RIM's strategy. Since he jumped ship to SONOS in '12, I'm guessing he was not a fan of the direction RIM had been heading. He has to be thinking that Alexa and the Echo/Dot look to SONOS a whole lot like the iPhone looked to BlackBerry. BlackBerry failed to pivot as people completely changed how they used their phone. I doubt he will make a similar mistake with SONOS. Voice will completely change how most people use multi-room audio. He is going to force innovation at SONOS to keep up with this change or be fired trying - count on it.

Above mentions dot and doesn't have sonic ability to compete with Sonos. I meant in previous posts it is Connect alternative (it has audio out). Such as is Google audio dongle direct competitor.

The Contol4 situation is an early indication that Sonos does not currently have the mindset needed to successfully maintain deep integration commitments. I wonder if they will really be able to embrace the level of change required to pull this off?

Did the switch get flipped with the new CEO or do they sill not have any #$@ to give?

Based on the leaked memo, I'd say the switch is flipped. From the memo:

"We must challenge ourselves to stay ahead of the curve. Being great doesn’t always require being first, but when it comes to the home music experience, we must be the pioneer. More companies are jumping into our space because they see the big opportunity ahead. What got us here won’t alone get us through the next phase."
"First, we must have a bias towards action."
"Second, we must innovate boldly."

I'm sensing a theme toward moving more quickly.

Based on the leaked memo, I'd say the switch is flipped. From the memo:

"We must challenge ourselves to stay ahead of the curve. Being great doesn’t always require being first, but when it comes to the home music experience, we must be the pioneer. More companies are jumping into our space because they see the big opportunity ahead. What got us here won’t alone get us through the next phase."
"First, we must have a bias towards action."
"Second, we must innovate boldly."

I'm sensing a theme toward moving more quickly.

Hopefully innovating boldly yields some awesome new products and features (not just Alexa or HDMI on playbar etc)

Alexa, Cortana, Siri, HDMI, TruePlay on Andriod, Play 3 refresh, Outdoor, IoT, and on and on...
I guess that is why picking the right CEO to set priorities is so important. There are not enough good engineers and coders to do all this (except at google). Hopefully Spence is the right guy. I think his life experience makes him an ideal pick for the job.

Seems, though, that Sonos are not in the driving seat. Alexa and Sonos integration works fine in the US but nowhere else which suggests that whilst Sonos have done everything they need to do to make it work Amazon wont release it for use elsewhere. That's an interesting relationship. Personally, for me Sonos is the best option for piping music around my home and I wont be looking to replace it anytime soon but if Google gives me voice control of Sonos in the UK before Amazon then my Amazon echos will go straight into the bin.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. There is no current native integration in US or elsewhere. It is in development.