Well, Sean and the boys cashed out. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Good for them. Better to take the offer now before the SB shipments drop off after even more media-server products are released this quarter at half or a third of the SB price. Slim Devices' exit was never going to be an IPO anyway.
Now while the press release doesn't state it overtly, there is a much bigger payment than $20M cash waiting for them from Logitech should they meet certain targets down the road. Obviously, those targets are based on quantitative factors and will lead SD straight down the road toward higher volume shipments and maximized profits. Will this lead to more Transporter or SB-level devices? Not if I were running Logitech, how 'bout you? If that performance-based payment is really going to be several times the $20M, then those profits have got to come from somewhere. In any case, the investors in SD just made 20x or so on their money and stand to do better in the future. The days of considering SD to be somebody's audophile / open source company are over. Logitech no doubt loves the free development provided by the open source world. From a business standpoint, this makes perfect sense - to a point. The current UI of SlimServer and some SB functionality is an obvious nightmare of confusion and complexity for current customers of Logitech products (and others too), so I am hopeful some things will change for the better. >From the point of view of the current SD customer base, this is likely to mark a high point in SD's product development history. Logitech has never steered their products toward the high end and understands that the market served today by SD is a tiny niche. The real money will come when the $99 Logitech SB ships (my guess). In all likelihood, the future will hold no place for audio-only devices like the SB anyway. Whether or not you care about video, the window of opportunity for the current SB has closed. Dateline Switzerland - 10/18/2006 Logitech Delivers Best-Ever Q2 Sales and Profit Sales up 19%, Net Income up 36%. How many audiophile companies do $500M/Qtr and post those numbers? BTW, Logitech is exchanging ADRs and starts trading directly on the Nasdaq next week. -- thaumaturge ------------------------------------------------------------------------ thaumaturge's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28821 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
