MelonMonkey;570344 Wrote: > You don't have to convince me, I own two Squeezeboxes. However, for the > majority of people out there, you'd better believe that offering a free > software-based player is going to cost Logitech some money. > > For instance, I know a friend can't afford any of the existing > Squeezebox models right now. I'm going to set up their computer system > simply to distribute audio to their stereo system upstairs and it will > be controlled from their iPod Touch using iPeng. How much money has > Logitech made from this? $0. > > Logitech need to start putting more attention into the Squeezebox line > as they're completely off the radar now in terms of consumer and media > mindshare. Any time anything about music streaming comes up, every > reporter/blogger immediately mentions SONOS. Usually, Squeezebox is > not mentioned at all. > > I think leaving Squeezeplay on the back-burner is a good idea and > they'd better start moving on some controller-only apps for popular > handheld devices, as well as coming out with a few more player > products. There's a market for commercial software as well, but the > problem with this is that Logitech is a hardware company, and like many > of their contemporaries, they can't seem to handle a Hardware+Software > business very well, seeing software only as a support vehicle for the > hardware, instead of its most important asset. Hardware is cheap, the > value is all in software - and that's for pretty much all consumer > electronics products. > > While they're at it, they might consider making a decent web page so > people can actually find out about the Squeezebox family - the current > Logitech page is losing them a lot of sales. Compare to the Sonos > page where you can find out almost everything you want about the > product(s). Here's a neat thing to try.. Pretend you didn't know about > this forum and now go to what you might find as the official Logitech > page about Squeezbox and try to find this forum. Good luck.
I generally agree with your points. But with regard to squeezeplay as a software player, I can do the same thing you indicated with itunes, foobar2000, winamp, or any number of other "free" players running on a computer. Pre-squeezebox days, my system was Laptop w/USB drive >S/PDIF coax out > Benchmark DAC I > audio input to preamp. And my player on the laptop was foobar2000. I don't think many people really want SB because of SbS. Frankly, the SbS software is at the top of the list of things I'm not fond of. I much preferred my foobar2000 (or even itunes!) in terms of library management. But I agree, Logitech makes it very hard for a customer to find its products and then even to clearly describe what they do (in terms that the average consumer can figure out). My brother is a savvy guy, but he could never understand the point of SB system until I showed him exactly how it worked in my home. Now he has a touch and a boom. In some ways, the fact that too many consumers think the SB player is simply a substitute for a free software player on a computer is part of the marketing problem. Sonos does a better job and part of the difference is that they do push the idea of a SYSTEM for network music playback. Squeezebox still comes off as too much of a bunch of standalone parts. Heck, half the new posters on this site have yet to figure out the difference between mysb.com and running SbS. But again, marketing and information!! -- garym ------------------------------------------------------------------------ garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80169 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
