Sonos sues Google

Wow. Did not see that coming

Doesn’t actually say for sure that Amazon will be sued, just that they feel patents have been violated.  I imagine that if they are successful against Google, then Amazon will want to negotiate out of court.  If they aren’t, then Amazon has nothing to fear.

Hope this doesn't go badly wrong, and Google assistant gets pulled.  But there is no doubt the big tech companies are getting too much power. That's why I like to use other companies like SONOS and Spotify, who built the space they occupy, and keep competition.

Merged from duplicate thread by moderator.

They say they can only sue one at a time, we'll see what happens with Amazon. What's going to happen with the voice assistants, status quo?

Right, I’m just predicted that Amazon won’t want to get sued if things turn out poorly for Google.  It’s bad PR for a large company to be found guilty for stealing from a small companies.  Makes them look like bullies.  Amazon would then be smart to just work out a license fee with Sonos instead of fighting it.

That’s assuming that there isn’t a significant difference between the Google and Amazon tech.  Being that Sonos seems to sue everyone who does multiroom, seems like Sonos owns the only way, or has patent for all the ways it can be done.

As far as voice assistants go, I imagine there is a contract in place so Google can’t just pull services.  On top of that, they would be damaging their own customers in the process.  The would even be hurting themselves a bit as part of what sells their stuff is the notion that it can be used everywhere.  Perhaps they can put in some sort of exit strategy, but I don’t think it would just happen overnight.  

Besides that, Sonos recently bought a company called Snips that specializes in voice control from local devices, no cloud involved.  I  would bet that Sonos has this as a backup/replacement in case things go sour with Google and then maybe Amazon.  Heck Snips may actually be better than Alexa/Google in the long run if it does not have the same limitations in music playback that these do.  

I think Google, and all the tech giants really, need to be careful that their actions against small companies don’t appear to be retaliations for being sued and such.  Again, looking like a bully is bad for business.

One wonders if Google cares whether they look like a bully - i know that I care and am disheartened … but not surprised at Google’s behaviour.   Amazon is not unblemished either - corporate greed !  

i love to support smaller companies (i work for a small software company) and will be a Sonos diehard fan and purchaser for as long as i am able .

Best of luck to Sonos in this endeavour!

I wouldn’t say I disagree with you, but I’m not a huge fan of the term ‘corporate greed’.   Anytime a company makes a decision some individual doesn’t like is labeled corporate greed.  Besides, it’s a corporations job to make as much money as possible within the rules.  It’s the government’s job to enforce the rules.

In my opinion, these Big tech companies got where they are because the government never knocked them down with anti-trust laws.  Google should not be able to leverage their voice assistant, music service, phone OS, etc against a company like Sonos from protecting themselves against theft of multiroom audio patents.  

I don’t see a big downside to anyone (except Google execs) for Sonos to win.  In the Denon case, Denon could keep going but had to pay license to Sonos.  Google would likely have to do the same I imagine...just a lot more money.  Probably not enough to stop production of Google voice assistants though.  So consumers of Google would keep their features, but Sonos would be rightly compensated for use of their intellectual property.

Billion dollar company sues multi Billion dollar company. I’m not a Google fan and they should pay if they are violating the patents - but Sonos is not some small upstart company, they are a huge (greedy lol) corp in their own right. 

Sonos former CEO admitted a while ago that they were slow when it comes to innovation and had been chasing the tail end of massive change driven by Amazon and Google in the space.  So when this happens they typical play is to sue your competitors, rightly or wrongly the courts will decide.  Hopefully us customers are the losers here. 

But I’m nervous about Google Assistant, if it goes from the platform I’m probably gone as a customer as well. 

Who’s going to be next? Apple does multiroom does it not? Will they sue Logitech over the Squeezebox patents for their multiroom? Open source developers who use the Squeezebox stuff in their homebrew multiroom? 

This seems very disingenuous to me

Sonos is definitely in a tricky spot here, needing Google but also suing them. I’m sure it was a tough decision. I’m glad that I use Alexa on my Sonos system

This news delights me!  I hope Sonos wastes a bunch of money and goes under!!  Clearly they think spending money on lawsuits is their best option, I believe they inherently know they can't compete! 

I had nothing but trouble with Sonos speakers so reading they are suing for technology “that lets wireless speakers connect and synchronize with one another” just makes me laugh!

Google and Amazon might have looked at their tech, but only to do the exact opposite!!

About a year ago I sold all my sonos on ebay and moved over to Bose soundtouch.  The Bose speakers are not perfect, but I have never, and I mean never had a sound-dropout or a time the speakers didn’t work.  Isn’t that what speakers are for? 

I can’t believe I struggled all those years with endless mandatory sonos s/w updates for capabilities I didn’t want, speakers being "lost" whenever I wanted to listen, NAS drives not being found, and support telling me that my network was broken, and all the other endless trouble.

And don't forget the ridiculous privacy policy!

Sonos is a company focusing on all the wrong things.  Like, what are they developing in their "labs"??, their speakers can't be anymore generic in 2020, nothing innovative.  And their insistence on alienating long-term customers with "voice control" and streaming which many never wanted, all while abandoning the fundamental capabilities long-term customers purchased the system for.  

Long way of saying, I hope this is the beginning of the end of Sonos!!