Sonos is getting quite litigious, Denon, bluesound, now Google and soon Amazon
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/technology/sonos-sues-google.html
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Userlevel 2
+1
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!!
Userlevel 7
+22
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?
Google’s turnover is something like 150 times that of Sonos
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?
Actually I think the next Lawsuit will be filed by Tutle Beach against Sonos, Logitech, Apple, Amazon, Google, Bose, etc. for infringing on the patents related to their Audiotron product. If you create a device that can stream MP3s then they will sue you for patent infringement. They might even claim that they own the concept of streaming music to a dedicated hardware device in general regardless of Codec.
Userlevel 2
+1
@melvimbe - 4334 Posts!!
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.
@southern gal
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 .
Sonos is a $1.3 BILLLON dollar company.... there is no definition of a "small" company that includes billions with a "B". They also just did a $37.5 Million dollar acquisition! Sonos speakers are in at least 7 million houses! (and I've read as high as 30 million houses)
You may perceive them as "small" because of their incompetence, for example Sonos lost $29.6 million during Q4 of 2019! And let’s not forget their recent "recycling program" bungle! Just like their privacy policy and s/w updates, they go out of their way to antagonize their customers.
@melvimbe - 4334 posts!!!!
stats show that smart speakers with voice control dominate the market.
I don’t care what "dominates the market", it is not what I purchased at a premium.
And BTW, look what that focus gave them, the opportunity to sue Google.
@Kirk33
It’s seems clear, however, that you have an agenda and aren’t going to let facts get in the way of making your point ;)
plenty of facts in my original post and newly attached link….
But you are correct anyway, YES I have an agenda! I want Sonos to fail! I thought that was clear. They wasted a lot of my time, caused a bunch of frustration and, they were a terrible company to deal with.
And by the way all.... notice this thread is in the "Music, culture & the industry" category.
While I get the sentiment, and don’t completely disagree, stats show that smart speakers with voice control dominate the market. I don’t know that Sonos could survive without some level of voice integration. You really can’t make much of an argument that ignoring voice control is a good business strategy right now.
I don’t see why Sonos can't concentrate of voice control and best audio products at the same time. I think that’s what they’ve been trying to do the past few years. Since voice control came out, they’ve actually created 2 products with built in voice, Sonos One and Beam. In the same period, they came out with Sonos Amp, Port, Sonos One SL...not even factoring in the iKea and Sonance products.
No, but you can make the argument, especially now they’ve acquired Snips that they should own and control their own voice control system and not be dependent on doing deals with the devil which is ultimately why we are in this discussion right now. Again, I’m probably in a minority but the current implementation of voice control is actually pretty useless to me as it assumes you are playing music from a streaming service whereas I play mostly from my own CD quality collection on a NAS drive.
I also think if someone puts voice control at the top of their must-haves above sound quality then why go to the expense of Sonos? you might as well buy the cheaper/inferior Amazon or Google products.
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