lanierb;354775 Wrote: > One reason they don't do it might be that it could undercut controller > sales. Not sure if that's it, but it's one reason for Logitech not to > do it. >
Yes, it's inevitably going to change the sales demographic for Sonos. People are likely to buy less controllers and also less of the bundles containing controllers. Sales of CR100 controllers will undoubtedly drop. But this is a 4 year old product and Sonos have had very good mileage out of it. All the R&D required to develop that original product was huge. Back in 2004 the components within it were extremely expensive. Prices of LCD screens, li-ion batteries and wifi components may have dropped since, but back then they cost a fortune. Take off the cost of shipping, packaging, dealer margins and tax off the price and it's clear that it must have taken a considerable time for Sonos to see return on the investment required in the controller development. Things moved on considerably before the launch of the SB controller, meaning it could be produced cheaper and some key components, like the LCD display, are of a higher quality that the Sonos CR100 for a lower retail price. Logitech also have the advantage of their extensive consumer electronics manufacturing background and production facilities in the far east. But the SB controller is still new and I doubt any business model had it producing a true return on investment in the 6 months or so since it's launch this year. They will need to shift more units of this product before introducing a free option for iPhone but, saying that, I doubt it will be that long until they do as they can't afford to be that far behind in the marketplace. -- jaffacake Ben - eco conscious techie and author of Jaffa's Green Blog - http://www.jaffacake.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------ jaffacake's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3206 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54336 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss