Strategy in TECH...
Amazon.com Inc.’s secretive tech innovation development center, called Lab126, is said to be working on a more robust, step-up smart home control solution designed to be mounted into the wall, in a bid to take share in the custom integration channel. The move, first reported by Bloomberg News, is designed to take on major players such as SnapAV’s Control4 and other “professionally installed smart home control” providers.
This Friday, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence will testify before a Congressional committee (the House antitrust subcommittee) that is investigating the issue of competition in digital markets. Or, I should say, they are investigating whether the tech giants – Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, etc. – are engaging in anti-competitive activities in violation of the law. The Sonos CEO is likely to complain that Google is in fact anti-competitive. Spence’s appearance takes place literally just days after it has filed a major patent infringement lawsuit against Google – alleging that the tech giant stole its proprietary technology…making them a victim.
Amazon has announced that the end-of-life for its Dash button is rapidly approaching. If you’ve been dying to try it, better move quick – Amazon will completely disable the system just three short weeks from now on August 31st.
In a new survey by Reputation Institute on corporate reputation, known as the 2019 RepTrak 100, we see wild swings in tech brands’ reputation with consumer privacy concerns finally appearing to take a major toll. With an overall all-category average reputation rating increase of +0.8 points, technology as a segment saw its collective reputation drop by 1 full point on the scale.
But the news wasn’t all bad – movie king Netflix, Inc. jumped 23 spots to come in at #1 for the first time in their history.
At the urging the industry minister of Japan, the country’s Fair Trade Commission will look at a new program announced by Amazon Japan that some suggest may be anti-competitive in nature. Depending on the Commission’s findings, Amazon may be forced to abandon the idea, which is a form of a consumer rebate program.
The latest data from market research firm Strategy Analytics shows that Amazon is still the king of the smart speaker market – selling more smart speakers than anyone else. But the data also showed something else rather surprising – Google has substantially closed the gap between it and Amazon, coming within about 5.5% of Amazon’s market share numbers in the all-important fourth quarter selling season.
This week we learned that Amazon has acquired Eero, a start-up company that offers a mesh WiFi system. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company does reveal what drew them to the still small, but rapidly growing Eero.
You will find more infographics at Statista
A new report by The Information has roiled Amazon, punching a hole in the concept that users of their Alexa-powered smart speaker devices will use them to buy billions of dollars of goods through voice ordering. According to sources from inside Amazon, the company is disappointed that only about 2% of users of their devices use them for voice-enabled shopping – a result that throws shade at the company and industry analysts who predicted a tsunami of voice-powered purchases. The company’s spokesperson disputes the report.
Control4 Corp. announced today that it has appointed Charlie Kindel, an ex-Amazon executive in charge of their Alexa project, to fulfill the role of Control4 Senior Vice President of Products & Services. Kindel is replacing Eric Anderson, who announced his retirement recently after holding the same role since 2012.
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