Spotify Connect, serious competition

(look at the profit margins in a Connect vs a Play 1).

And for what it's worth, I'd swap the pricing on the Play1 and the Connect.

This is why you're not in management, the Play:1 is already the fastest selling Sonos hardware they've ever released. The slowest selling? The Connect (according to my national distributor). Sonos will be making far more money off of the Play:1 than they will the Connect, simply because they're selling a lot more of them.

Let's face it, the tech is the communication protocol...which is the Connect.

Now what are you talking about? The Connect is just another zoneplayer, same as the Connect:Amp, the Play:5, the Play:3 and the Play:1, they all contain the same communication protocol.

it's just going to show them that there aren't any good streaming services that play nice with Sonos...

Leaving aside that there are plenty of good streaming services that work with Sonos (and Spotify still works btw, just not Spotify Connect), what difference would putting a Connect in someone's house make compared to a Play:1, they both play EXACTLY the same streaming services, there's no difference in what's on offer.

It is not practical for hardware manufacturers to custom code for each service. It is not practical for services to custom code for each hardware player.

SONOS developed an API for services and SPOTIFY has developed an API for hardware players.

Both hope that the other side will adopt "our" API.

Without an industry standard API, a company could easily spend most of its development time simply reacting to changes that others make to private API's, rather than innovating its own product. I see this with smaller companies constantly reacting to Apple and Microsoft, rather than innovating their own products. Market leaders can use this as a strategy to "manage" potential competitors.

I'm not a SPOTIFY user, but from my remote view, it seems that there is still some "dorm room" mentality in SPOTIFY's approach to software and server management.

Personally, the services are more or less interchangeable. Sure, there might be a great feature or exclusive artist here and there, but if I'm annoyed at a service, I'll fix that issue at the end of the current billing cycle by jumping to another service.

Personally, the services are more or less interchangeable. Sure, there might be a great feature or exclusive artist here and there, but if I'm annoyed at a service, I'll fix that issue at the end of the current billing cycle by jumping to another service.

That sounds nice, but the problem is, once you've really bought into a service like Spotify, it is difficult to switch. You have put a lot of effort into playlists, songs, etc., building a "library" that you don't really own. You can't just "move" that over to a new service. Below was an interesting article on the subject. I like Spotify, and hope it continues on Sonos, at least well enough, because switching would be a real pain.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/why-i-have-to-quit-spotify/

JDCJ,

I understand your point. Why would the services want to be interchangeable? "Lock-in" would seem to be the best business model -- at least for the biggest companies. Smaller companies could create a niche by being "universal". One reason that I don't commit deeply to services is because the "cloud" is so transient -- after a short storm the cloud dissipates.

I'm surprised that we don't have a pack of 3rd party utilities that could "scrape" a playlist and re-create it on another service. Conceptually, this is not very hard, but it would be messy because there will be spelling issues and some tracks might be exclusive to one service.

there are services that do just that.

for example, I used http://spotizr.com/, to copy all my spotify playlists to Deezer. That part went well, the Sonos integration worked but then I tried the mobile app on my iphone and it was total rubbish. Spotify will stream non-stop during my 1 hour commute in the car over 3G. Deezer stuttered, dropped out, regularly disconnected from bluetooth and was altogether hopeless. I went back to Spotify in the end.

With these music services the whole package has to work - the music content/quality, their own app, integration with sonos, and the other features that stand them out from the rest such as how good their recommendations are or how accurate the 'radio' is in playing similar music etc.

for me, Spotify ticks the most boxes which is why Im so disappointed the relationship between Sonos and spotify has soured so much that we wont likely ever have improvements in the sonos UI with Spotify (e.g. Radio) OR Spotify Connect built into Sonos.

And hopefully Spotify will realize that Sonos is good for them too. I was a Spotify free user (desktop only) until I got Sonos. It was having Sonos that pushed me into adding the premium service, wanting to have a vast library of old and new music at my disposal. Same for a family member that I sold Sonos on and subsequently Spotify premium. It is a natural fit. I understand wanting the other guy to play by your rules (API). Hopefully both will see value in the other and continue to work together.

As long as we don't lose functionality, I am probably content with the status quo: Spotify playlists and local storage for when I know what I want to listen to and Pandora and local radio for exploring.

Leaving aside that there are plenty of good streaming services that work with Sonos (and Spotify still works btw, just not Spotify Connect), what difference would putting a Connect in someone's house make compared to a Play:1, they both play EXACTLY the same streaming services, there's no difference in what's on offer.

Utterly wrong. They play from the same service but the API Spotify exposes has like a third of the features it actually delivers in their application: no radio, no music discovery. You've got to manage everything in Spotify to make it available in Sonos, or at least, this is way more simple in Spotify.
And this is not a limitation from Sonos as they have implemented all of the exposed methods in Spotify's API.

Anyhow, Spotify has already realized Sonos is good for them. They asked Sonos to be part of the Spotify Connect initiative but Sonos' CEO refused.
He thinks tying up too close to one of the music service available out there is not aligned to Sonos' beliefs to make available all the music of the world through their speaker.

Utterly wrong. They play from the same service but the API Spotify exposes has like a third of the features it actually delivers in their application: no radio, no music discovery. You've got to manage everything in Spotify to make it available in Sonos, or at least, this is way more simple in Spotify.
And this is not a limitation from Sonos as they have implemented all of the exposed methods in Spotify's API.

Err, I'm only "utterly wrong" if you've completely missed my point, which you have. My point was, there's no difference between the spotify functionality offered by a Sonos Connect and a Play:1, which is what the other bloke was apparently saying.

Sure. If I did, my mistake, sorry!

No worries.