I have to admit Enno’s enthusiasm for Roon and its future was very evident, and I suppose the one thing that we know about all Roon, founders and staff is that they use Roon and will not want it to disappear just as much as us.
.sjb
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I suspect, and would hope, Roon founders, previous owners, and employees would be enthusiastic about their product and livelihood. Wouldn’t you? The cynicism of some people here is astounding.
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Isn’t that what I’ve just said ?
.sjb
This is probably the biggest reassurance:)
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or realism , acquisitions and take overs are for a reason , sometime we may learn what !!
Think Primephonic and Apple
The company I retired from was taken over / bought a few years after I left , very few of the experienced technical staff stayed , what a waste of talent
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And in other cases NeXT turns into today’s Apple
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It is all about what Harman wants to do. The Roon team’s desires are not relevant anymore. Harman is a large business and will be driven by product focus, not by the current Roon team’s preferences. I would also expect the Roon team to not hang on after whatever locked period they signed up for. I mean, what’s the fun of working for someone who does not understand and give space to your passions?
The Apple analogy is wrong. There’s no parallel here at all.
Additionally, keep in mind data maintenance and curation, which is at the core of what Roon is, is a resource-intensive task - both from data curation and cloud compute costs standpoints.
The question I have is: How long will Harman fund such work? If all Harman is interested in is RAAT and its integrations, I think it is possible (likely!) Roon will be discontinued as a player and will be folded into hardware integrations only.
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But they did have a choice about who to sell to and the contract clauses they signed.
The first sentence here depends on the second, and the second is purely an opinion and prejudice.
The point is that not every acquisition ends in a disaster and is done for the wrong reasons. Bad outcomes happen, and yes, apparently some forum users were in that situation. The right reasons and good outcomes happen as well. It could be either in the Roon case.
So are most business endeavors. They have costs. Some more, some less, but the cost on its own is never a reason for not doing the business.
We don’t know. Depends on the upsides.
IF
Sure, but depends on the IF and nobody knows
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I think there is a reasonable probability you are correct. Time will tell. Even if the Roon founders and management team has every intention of staying on, working for another outfit is not the same as running the show yourself. It will be an interesting year or two going forward.
EDIT: I also see no need to dissect every sentence in a person’s statement when all we’re doing here is pure speculation.
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No firm will permanently agree to make the purchase target have permanent say on direction. That is WHY they buy them.
Indeed that is my opinion.
I would say the record is extremely strong about every acquisition ending up changing a product.
True, but Roon is not a content-per-se company (one reason Harman could be interested in). Look at Harman’s portfolio, that should tell you something.
Well, again it is of course my speculation, based on what Harman is. Remember: Roon is just one of the businesses under the “lifestyle” part of the company. The Roon team has no long term power to set direction.
I didn’t say that they would have a permanent say on direction. I agree that products change after acquisitions, but product changes are not always a bad thing either.
My point is just “let’s see”. The constant “I was affected by a bad acquisition and therefore all acquisitions are bad” is just a bit tiresome because it’s blatantly incorrect
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Not at all, I am not sure why you say that. I am just speculating (as everyone here is) and being REALISTIC with such speculation. That is my point.
I was on the “buying” end of one of these. Good for many of us, bad for others.
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Because I made my original “NeXT went well” quip to someone who’s repeating the “look at all the failed acquisitions” mantra and then you referred to that, so I kept seeing it in this context
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Happy New Year to everyone!
Surely the only thing we can be sure of is that we really cannot be sure of anything.
I agree, let’s wait and see.
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Windows 11’s TPM, RAM and other requirements can be bypassed, during the install via registry edits and/or via a custom usb installer.
I’m not a computer geek, but I think that’s how people get into trouble installing software on an under spec’d computer and wonder why they have problems. I would prefer to upgrade my computer if needed.
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There was a livestream with the founder not too long ago.
Nothing has changed. Carry on.
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In general, I agree with you. However, I have to say that the Windows 11 hardware requirements seem somewhat arbitrary.
Before the Windows 11 launch, I had an old laptop with a 4th gen core processor with no TPM enrolled in the Windows Preview Program. That laptop was quite happy running every re-release of Windows 11 until the last week or so before release when the hardware limits were enforced for future updates (including the formal release).
But suddenly, at release I needed an 8th gen core processor and a TPM2.0 module.
To confound things further, Microsoft realised that the general requirements for 11 disqualified every single Surface model on sale at the time so they certified certain specific 7th generation processors just so the Surface lineup could support Windows 11.
It all seemed somewhat arbitrary to me.