erland;584027 Wrote: > This all sounds good, the problem is to have an architecture that > supports all these and still be able to set a low price on it. The > combo (point 3) is especially problematic as it needs the display of 1 > and the CPU/memory power of 2.
i disagree that the combo product NEEDS the display. what i have been trying to say is NONE of my 3 product suggestions, for a base model unit, needs a display or a remote, or anything like that. just a solid box with HQ audio/video outputs, and enough CPU power to not be slow. i think you have missed me saying that. base unit = no expensive displays, no remotes, etc... how could they do that? by making the box get an IP via DHCP and be webui accessible, and by having their own branded remote apps. once upon a time you didn't need a SBC to setup a SBRec, SP could do it. i think they could do such a product for $199 easy. erland;584027 Wrote: > I believe they need to choose. Either they focus on the player and > server as separate products or they focus on the combo product. why? why couldn't they do all three? it seems to me they have all 3 now, but just done badly, but not done badly simply b/c they have all 3, but for other reasons. erland;584027 Wrote: > The Touch is proof of that a decently priced combo product with the > current architecture results in a combo product with to slow > CPU/memory. The problem is that if the Touch would have better hardware > and priced at $399 it would have got too expensive for the mass market. > Even $299 is too high for the mass market since they don't understand > the needs for the advanced features it offers. i think like you said earlier, you could combine similar hardware of a sheevaplug with the SBRec, and get the $199 combo product. ditch the stupid touchscreen, who sits right next to their stereo anyway? erland;584027 Wrote: > Remember that Logitech is a hardware company that earns its money on the > hardware, not the software. If they had an iOS app they could maybe sell > it for $5 if it was really good. What do you think they earn on a single > sold Squeezebox ? I bet it's a lot more than $5. pippin sells his app for $10 or so, and if you can monitize SBS into a server product, as you seem to agree they can/should, you could do the same with SP, as the SBC tried to do, but on a much BIGGER market. if you have the intellectual property, you should try to get money for it! they developed it anyway, why wouldn't you try to market it onto these other devices when you know if you don't, others will? why cede it? the margins may not be as big as your hardware, but i would guess the overall potential is a lot bigger than actual SBC sales. erland;584027 Wrote: > What I'm trying to say is that since they won't make much money on a > iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch software, again, maybe not per unit, (the margin), but who is to say what the potential is, especially if you sold a displayless HW AV product? remeber, i am saying they should do all this together. erland;584027 Wrote: > they could just spend this money marketing the already available third > party solutions. This way they would get the benefits through more sold > Squeezeboxes without having to do an investment in porting SP to iOS. port SP or do an app from scratch, but to me, it is insane they have left this to others, while developing SBC, touch, etc... the game of business isn't the margin alone, its overall profit. smaller margins are good as long as the raw numbers are big enough. in other words, a smaller margin product can ultimately provide more total dollars. erland;584027 Wrote: > It's not about giving up, it's about selecting the path that makes it > easiest to increase the hardware sells and the path that makes your > products look as good as possible. Marketing the existing iOS apps > feels a lot easier than trying to port SP in this regard. we disagree. first of all logitech should have been first to market. but even if they aren't, they should still attempt it imo. erland;584027 Wrote: > I believe they have tried to hire him, fortunately they didn't succeed. > I'm 100% sure iPeng wouldn't have been what it is today if it was > controlled by Logitech. thats prob true, but don't conflate the issue. just b/c logitech is screwed up doesn't invalidate my point. i am talking about "what should be" not "what currently is." erland;584027 Wrote: > They also had a user interface designer for a while which they managed > to loose when they decreased the resources in the Squeezebox team to > bare minimum. > > Anyway, I'm not sure there is any point discussing all this because > it's not like anyone from Logitech management reads these posts. no, but i enjoy the mental exercise of it. who knows, maybe someone will take all this opensource stuff and make their own product based on these ideas. erland;584027 Wrote: > It's a delicate situation because Logitech have the choice to: > 1. Compete with established HiFi manufacturers in the high-end audio > market, something that's definitely out of their current target > market. > 2. Compete with Apple and Sonos which is a lot more focused at music > than Logitech. > 3. Compete with mass market online radio devices like Chumby and > generic UPnP players where the current Squeezebox architecture is more > advanced than needed. > > None of these roads feels easy to me, so it's not an easy choice for > them. see, again this is where we disagree. i have been saying for a long time now it should be an audio AND video product, and have an "all in one" version. i do think there is a hole for a product that does that well. TIVO is a great product, but currently is not good at music. if it does ever get good at music, i think logitech would only then be able to compete with them by offering a low, one time price. but TIVO is just one such product. logitech has a long way to go though, and i bet slim is a backburner project for them. i think google tv and revue and crap like that is where they are focused now, and again, they are just flopping around, lost, no vision. -- MrSinatra www.lion-radio.org using: sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parent's home) - sbs 7.5.2b - win xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link dir-655 - 45k+ mp3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82366 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
