Amazon Plans High-End Echo

Inevitable move.

Interesting, and could be a reason why Amazon hasn’t further extended Sonos’ Alexa capabilities.

Yes, it's interesting. Hard to really say what kind of impact a higher quality echo is going to have on the smart speaker industry as a whole, especially without more details about this speakers quality or price point.

My instinct has always been that Amazon isn't really that interested in making money in the high quality speaker market, their goal is to be dominate in the voice assistant market. This is why they've pushed hard to get the cheap echo dots into homes as well as license out Alexa to other speaker makers so liberally.

So why build this new better speaker? Because they know there is a segment of the market that will opt to get a Google Max or Homepod for the sound quality, and don't quite trust Alexa in some other speaker brands product. They don't want you to speaker quality to be the reason you choose Google over Alexa, even if your logic may not be 100% sound. My theory anyway.

As far as impact on Sonos sales goes...hard to say. In some respect it could be good as it will bring consumers into the higher end speaker market who may never have really considered it previously. Some of them may consider this 'super echo' and end up buying a Sonos One instead. Perhaps the difference between what a Sonos system and Alexa echo only system offer will be greater highlighted. Differences in multiroom features, audio source capabilities, TV compatibility, choice in voice assistant, and smart home features.

The article also mention two other potential items. Alexa controlled headphones sound interesting, and would be particularly interesting to see if it operates off wifi (no phone required) or bluetooth. The robot...need more information on why I would need that in my life. Having Alexa alone is not enough as it will surely be cheaper to put echo dots in every room of the house.

why Amazon hasn’t further extended Sonos’ Alexa capabilities.
If that be the case, it should not be a surprise. If Sonos will also get into bed with the Amazon competition, Amazon isn't going to cooperate with Sonos except to the extent it meets their interests/needs.

I also wonder if Sonos took the view that it was inevitable that google/ apple/ amazon would move into their territory with better quality speakers potentially impacting their market share. The tie up with Ikea (albeit without voice) might be part of their defense by pulling market share (and longer term brand buy-in) at the lower price level.

I also wonder if Sonos took the view that it was inevitable that google/ apple/ amazon would move into their territory with better quality speakers
This is a classic business war game in progress between an all integrated in house approach versus making agnostic speakers that will listen to the voice commands of any of the all integrated players/service providers. A bit like the old computer wars that were won by the PC+Microsoft model that defeated the all integrated Apple approach for their computers. It will be interesting to see who wins, with the higher level of challenges posed by smart homes/automation that is much more than just voice command and control for music. Because of this higher level of complexity one cannot assume that what won the battle for Microsoft will work here as well.

It will make nice little case study in the years to come, if MBA schools still use case studies in future.

Looks like Amazon is taking the music business pretty seriously. Apple and Tidal will both take big hits. Doubt Tidal will survive. The poorly selling HomePod is toast (except, of course, among Apple cultists).

Yes; and this has again spurred talks of Apple buying Sonos. Which may be good for new customers but will probably be a disaster for the installed base.

And nobody saw it coming...