If you check out the posts on the BluOS forum, “integrate” seems to be somewhat of an overstatement. “Totally useless” according to one BluOS user.
The also already had Amazon music before it went HD so not hard to add it really. Also it’s not that integrated you can search for stuff but the UI is really limited and you can’t add anything via it.
My thoughts exactly…
I’ve been thinking about this: Who would buy Roon?
IMO, it will likely be private equity group you’ve never heard of, but let’s ignore that for this rant. The question I ask myself: is there an audio-centric acquisition that makes sense?
Roon’s key value is its agnostic support for audio appliances. As an example, if Sonos acquired Roon, would that lower Roon’s value outside of the Sonos eco-system? Or does Sonos look at Roon as a way to leap-frog into the whole Hi-Res circus? Supports their existing H/W and a new generation of appliances, at the same time, with a brand (Roon) that audiophiles love.
What about Apple? Is Apple worried about losing the “audiophile market”? I would say: No. Their recent move to kill iTunes speaks to that, IMO. Audiophiles are both a niche and dying market.
What about a BPC (black plastic crap) vendor (e.g. Denon, Onkyo/Pioneer, Yamaha)? I would also say: No. They aren’t exactly flush with cash and all of them have (mostly) pulled back from high-end 2-channel gear, hanging by their fingernails on suburban homeowners that are still buying “home theater” gear.
What about Sony? I would say: No. Sony doesn’t share with others, so a platform that supports on-line streaming services not owned by Sony is a non-starter; similarly, Sony could care less about supporting appliances not made by Sony. Sony doesn’t have software in its DNA.
Looking forward to the upcoming press release…
Tough to say without knowing the numbers…
Qobuz
Google
HDTracks
Maybe 2 or more entities combining into something new?
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I think a conglomerate made of every company in the Forbes 500 will buy Roon. It’s the only logical answer.
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George Soros 
Mark Zuckerburg
I found a pound down the back of the sofa today, given how crazy these theories are surely a pound is a fitting bid?
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Good thinking, but alas, we have a lot more value to build before we exit.
The rest are a reasonable analysis, but you missed some really obvious players.
I don’t have numbers on their end, so I could be waaaaay off, but I don’t agree with the possibility of a smaller party acquiring a larger one. I can’t speak to them, but even a merger wouldn’t be interesting for us.
That’s an obvious one, Amazon being another, and there are a few others in this space.
However, no one is acquiring us at the moment nor are we in talks with anyone.
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Elon Musk – gotta have something do do with those thousands of comm satellites.
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Yes, I know… I could have gone on, but decided I’d ranted long enough.
Absolutely not. You all are experienced and knowledgeable about a ton of stuff besides music/audio. It’s a joy to hear that wisdom leak through in other areas, especially business happenings. We’ve been strongly influenced by many people on this forum just “ranting”, and some our most trusted advisors came from here. It’s important to get the rant to be useful or interesting, but you’ve never failed on that @Krutsch.
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I’m flattered. I will endeavor to keep up the steam.
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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)
Meridian.
::ducks::
Let’s be methodical.
The prime suspects in all takeovers are the FAANG companies. Apple already has a music solution, as does Amazon. Google has two (maybe more). That leaves Facebook and Netflix.
Facebook has deals with lots of music suppliers, and the Facebook Music system allows user-uploaded music to be placed in (on?) uploaded videos. Their music story is amazingly spotty and disjointed, but a recent deal with Spotify seems to mean that they aren’t in the market.
Netflix is more interesting. Their video-streaming success is now under attack from all sides with at least half-a-dozen new streaming services launching this year, several of which are pulling from Netflix content which Netflix has relied upon. They have allowed their DVD-by-mail service to die a slow death by not replacing DVDs that have been lost, broken, or stolen. One assumes that they are frantically searching for a new string to their bow. But music streaming seems to have relatively little upside in terms of revenue, and they’d be playing catch-up to established services like Spotify.
But Microsoft… Sure, I know what you’re thinking… that there’s no M in FAANG. And MS is notoriously NIH. They wouldn’t do streaming, just because everyone else is doing streaming. They’d do something exactly like it, but different and incompatible, and call it “rivering” or “creeking”. And the ignominious failures of Zune Music and Groove Music have made MS gunshy about re-entering the music space.
You may think all that, but things have changed. And consider the affinities between Roon and MS. Most of Roon seems to have been built with Microsoft’s .NET platform. MS has a huge cloud computing platform, Azure, which would no doubt run Roon Server very well, and many programmers, both direct and affiliated, experienced in working with .NET programs like the Roon Remote.
Imagine multiple tiers of Roon, with the lowest only supporting Tidal and Qobuz streaming, to anywhere – your home, your phone, your car – powered by Azure, controlled by your local remote app, but with the higher tiers allowing you to upload your music to the cloud and play it from there as well. Sure, might need some tweaks to the RAAT protocol to support WAN latencies, but doable.
They could call it “Zune II – The Return”.
Or maybe just “Zoon”.
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Pretty sure this is satire, because:
Lol. Going back to MS-DOS, which they bought from Seattle Computer Products, to Windows (which Jobs ripped off from Xerox and Gates ripped off from Jobs), to Windows NT (which was “borrowed” from IBM and OS/2), To SQL Server (which was acquired from Sybase), to Terminal Server (which was “borrowed” from Citrix), to VB (which was acquired from Tripod and led to .Net), Microsoft never really invented much there. Except a BASIC interpreter, which Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote and punched out on paper tape for Altair.
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As for the rest of this acquisitition speculation and exit strategy talk, lol. A $6 or $7 million company isn’t even a rounding error for all these companies being mentioned.
Plus it’s likely that roon has already saturated this dying breed market. Raat, which is pretty awesome, might have some residual IP value to somebody somewhere. (Wonder if Meridian still owns that?)
P.S. Maybe they’re in talks with JimH?
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Plex is trying to make moves, but I have no visibility into their capital/investor profile. But I suspect this line of speculation is too plebian/mass-market. All those companies GTM for lowest common denominator. Roon is fundamentally upmarket from those platforms. Yes, some of us thrifty souls live in the RPi ecosystem. But I would agree a mass-“premium” HW tie-up would make sense (NAD, or better), except for the fact that HW companies are lousy with SW innovation. No, telecom or entertainment would make sense, except we’re back to mass-market again. I’ll let this stew in my hind brain for a while to see what I come up with.