If you allegedly can’t make enough cars to satisfy demand, then why would you drop the price?
There is also some news about safety probes by the government?
Making hardware sure is difficult.
Someone has to make hardware though. You can’t run software on the air. The issue is hardware has become a commodity. People want to pay the lowest price. That means the value is in the software. That’s what happens when everyone buys components from the same 3-5 manufacturers. Tech and auto are similar in that way.
There’s a reason Apple keeps control over the software and designs their own. They still make a lot of money off computers while the windows PC makers have horrible profit margins. Also, Apple’s profit per phone is far higher than the android phones. I’m amazed Samsung hasn’t tried to make it’s own OS. They could have bought Nokia or Blackberry for the SW and thrown away the HW business. To me, that’s the biggest threat to Android. If Samsung decides to get off Android and have it’s own OS, there goes the biggest seller of Android. I think it’d take Google a long-time to react. They aren’t setup to run a big phone HW business. Also, there’s no one big enough they could buy to quickly replace the lost volume.
[quote=“marcus335, post:3, topic:226”]
There’s a reason Apple keeps control over the software and designs their own. They still make a lot of money off computers while the windows PC makers have horrible profit margins. Also, Apple’s profit per phone is far higher than the android phones. I’m amazed Samsung hasn’t tried to make it’s own OS. They could have bought Nokia or Blackberry for the SW and thrown away the HW business. To me, that’s the biggest threat to Android. If Samsung decides to get off Android and have it’s own OS, there goes the biggest seller of Android. I think it’d take Google a long-time to react. They aren’t setup to run a big phone HW business. Also, there’s no one big enough they could buy to quickly replace the lost volume.
[/quote]Samsung tries to make OS (Tizen) and Google tries to make hardware (Nexus). Making both hardware and OS in-house is harder than they thought.
HW is just a hobby for Google though. They never intended for Nexus to be a high-volume product. It was more of a reference design.
Today, it was announced Tesla is being investigated by NHTSA for safety issues on the model S suspension.
Is their ways to coverup their failure. If it is true, why then they buy Nest? FB has at one time considered building their own smartphone but decided against it. Is very hard to have both hardware and software inside one single umbrella. Engineers only think in terms of tangible stuffs, totally forget about people integration (compensations and rewards, culture), design and development processes, etc.
I never understood the hype about Nest. It’s a product people replace once every 10-20 years.
Google is waking up to that fact too. There is nothing particularly compelling about Nest, especially at that crazy valuation.
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Google and Facebook business model marginalized hardware, OS, apps, content and services. Make money via selling you.
Microsoft marginalized hardware.
I avoid using their apps and services, and didn’t buy any from their ads.
I like the Nest stuff. I would very much like to be able to have remote or programmed control over my heat, my lights, and other things. I think an all-in-one security and control system makes sense.
Have you looked into Amazon Echo? I heard it does amazing things with those IoT sensors and controls.
We have an Echo. I was not aware that it would interface with light switches. But you keep an Echo in the house, whereas I thought Nest allowed you to be on vacation and make changes to the house while away.
The Echo was a fun purchase, but we use it for four things:
- “What’s the Weather”
- “Tell me a joke”
- “set an alarm.”
- “Add xyz to my todo list/shopping list.” (Actually, here’s a fun one. Ask it to add “ketchup” to your shopping list, and “Catch up” to your todo list.)
Asking it to define and spell things has been spotty.
Asking it to play music is downright dangerous. If it doesn’t quite understand the name of something that might be in your library, it goes out to Prime Music and can drag back some “explicit lyrics” material. We don’t let the kids ask for music anymore.
I guess we do use it for a fifth thing: conversation piece when company is over. “Set phasers to stun.” “Earl Grey Hot”
Yes, Echo can interface with many smart home controls already, and more are added every week. This is an old Wired article:
The most fun part is the IFTTT recipes. You can do if-else and some fun programming with your controls…
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Yes, but those are all things you rarely replace on your home. The upgrade cycle is so slow. That’s not something that should command a high-multiple.
We are still at the green field stage with home automation. Too early to talk upgrades when the installation base is 0. Amazon is making great profits on the Echo I suspect. Most of the smarts are server-side so the marginal cost is zero. The hardware is little more than speakers with wifi…
Qn: Why do I need an Echo(extra device)?.. If I have a “Siri”/“Ok Google”/“Cortana” on my smartphone?
Home automation is a thing for the top 5%. That’s not a very big market.
Honestly, we bought it for the kids so that I wouldn’t have to tell them how to spell things anymore. I did have to curtail my son’s use of it on his math homework though.
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Oooops.