“With Google announcing yesterday that it acquired the Tony Fadell-led Nest Labs for a cool US$3.2 billion, an emerging narrative is that Google caught Apple asleep at the wheel,” Yoni Heisler writes for TUAW. “For many who keep a close eye on tech, an Apple/Nest Labs acquisition seemed like a match made in heaven.”
“I myself was quick to hop on this bandwagon,” Heisler writes. “But the more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that Apple purchasing Nest, especially for billions of dollars, just didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“There’s no denying that Nest Labs is doing some really cool work and has already put out two really great and forward-thinking products in just three years time. And again, there’s no denying that Nest’s products have a distinctive Apple-y vibe to them, a fact which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given that the company was co-founded are two highly regarded Apple alums,” Heisler writes. “That notwithstanding, assume for a second that Apple was the company that purchased Nest Labs. Now what? Now Apple all of a sudden finds itself selling thermostats and smoke detectors. And it paid $3.2 billion for that privilege? Where’s the win there?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple didn’t want Tony enough to keep him the first time. Why would they pay the fargin’ ridiculous sum of $3.2 billion to get him back? If they really wanted him, they could have kept him at Apple for his entire natural life – built him his own building and given him his own engineering staff to make thermostats, smoke alarms, and whatever else – for far, far less than that.
Related articles:
Feuds, funding and a fed up Fadell: Why Apple didn’t buy Nest – January 14, 2014
Did Tim Cook blow it by not snapping up Nest before Google? – January 13, 2014
Google to buy Nest Labs for $3.2 Billion – January 13, 2014
Tony Fadell introduces Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector – October 8, 2013
Tony Fadell, Father of the iPod: From Apple to Nest Labs, always a designer – July 24, 2013
Apple Store to sell Tony Fadell’s Nest Learning Thermostat, report claims – May 25, 2012
‘Father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell shows off his new project: Thermostats – October 25, 2011
So, why didn’t Apple buy Nest? As shown in the interview http://23tv.de/?p=327 , one of Tony Fadell’s competencies is to build great designed products. Apple has this capability and Google definitely need to improve this skill. Thus, I believe Google acquired nest for Tony Fadell’s skills and not for nest’s data.
Except that Nest contracted out the design of their thermostat and smoke detector to a 3rd party called Bould design.
Apple didn’t buy Nest because Nest’s line of business isn’t big enough for Apple’s attention. We’re talking about a company that even at Google’s wildly overpriced $3.2B purchase price is dwarfed by Apple’s scale.
Buying Nest wouldn’t add enough to Apple’s revenues to be worth the management attention of integrating the company into Apple.
-jcr
Who would want Google to have knowledge of when they are home. You could be sure that they would sell that information to somebody, So they could shower you with advertising. Don’t you think Google would probably build in secret cameras into the smoke detectors. Then, if you failed to use a condom, you would start getting inundated with A
advertising for condoms.There is no way, that I would buy a product from Google that would allow them into my home. that is why I don’t use android. Back when they were caught steeling data during their picture taking drives for their maps, I removed all of their programs from my computers, iPads, and iPhones. I never use their browser. The best thing Apple did was remove YouTube and Google maps as installed items. We would all be smart to keep Google out of our lives.
So I guess you can expect future Nest products to require you to have a Google+ login to use and will send data to google about what temp you like your house at. Expect to get a lot more calls from people trying to sell you HVAC products, once google starts selling that data.
This is silly.
Google paid ten times what Nest is worth.
I don’t accept that the skills and mindset of Fadell et al are worth the difference. There is a huge pool of inventive, creative talent out there, as can be seen by the bustle of activity in devices being created today.
If Apple were not interested in developing iOS-based home automation systems to rival Nest’s offerings, there are plenty of talented players in the aftermarket ecosystem who could step in to produce the hardware/sensors and related apps to go much further than Nest.