Sonos cracks $1 billion
Sonos, the original Wi-Fi music player maker, announced 2019 results of revenues over $1.2 billion. The product is now in over 9 million households and the company’s collaboration with Ikea to build combo lamp/speakers and bookshelf speakers was a huge hit, resulting in 30,000 units sold on day one. CEPro
dis-rup-shun: I recall seeing a prototype of the first Sonos version. It was cool, but like so many other new concepts, it was uncertain if the market would understand its benefits and generate mass appeal. What the company proved is that a really simple setup and user interface was the difference maker. In the 1990s, people were anxious to extend the convenience of digital music beyond the iPod without dongles, converters and 3.5mm connectors. This little startup became the top home music system, roles which giant Sony and mighty Bose once enjoyed. Sonos has, since 2002, maintained superior design standards, aesthetics, sound quality and user interface. Sonos and Apple are in a design class by themselves, and Sonos is further evidence that superior design, even more than great technology, leads to superior market performance.
Amazon sues Department of Defense
Amazon followed through with its threats to file suit on the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI contract — a project to upgrade military IT infrastructure and house military data on an external cloud. Microsoft was awarded the contract and AWS, believing it was the front-runner on the contract, has stated that the decision was influenced by President Trump and his feud with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos over unfriendly presidential coverage by Bezos owned Washington Post. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: The results of this suit may set a precedent for losers of large contracts, as deals this big that involve years of proposals and positioning cost a fortune for those firms competing. The DOD has often awarded giant contracts to multiple bidders as if to make it worth their while and to maintain competition throughout the life of the contract. If AWS wins this action, the government procurement process will undoubtedly be amended to make it more difficult for politics to influence the outcomes.
No breakage in Tesla Cybertruck follow-up video
Musk released, via Twitter, a video of the steel ball not smashing the bullet proof windows of the Cybertruck which were smashed not once, but twice during the big reveal. Commentary of the follow-up video on Jalopnik notes that the truck’s door was ajar, absorbing some of the energy of the steel ball.
dis-rup-shun: The great reveal of the Cybertruck seems to be the most talked about event at weekend dinner parties, tailgates and cocktail functions. If you don’t know about the smashed windows spectacle, you have not seen or heard any news since Thursday. In retrospect, this announcement has created more buzz since Apple’s Think Different Superbowl Commercial, and, love him or hate him, Musk continues to be one of the highest profile business people in the world.
Cloud energy efficiency is goal of latest semiconductor start up
Nuvia is a new semiconductor company whose founders are expert at developing chips that are energy efficient — having come from Apple where they developed chips designed for battery powered, mobile devices. Nuvia will take power efficiency technology and apply it to data center semiconductors, potentially saving large amounts of energy in electricity hungry data centers. Techspot
dis-rup-shun: As attested by this weekend’s Harvard Yale football game turned climate change protest, energy efficiency is becoming a political football. Count on BigTech to use energy efficiency as differentiator of cloud services, and certainly energy efficiency is important to operating expenses. Nuvia is in a good position to benefit as cloud services are growing quickly (12% CAGR, according to Gartner).