It's all a matter of perception (mktg says "of positioning"). Yes, individual perception but you have some rules. First, what do you want to sell? Do you want to sell some sort of feelings/imaginations/vibrations? Do you want to sell a product? Do you want to sell both? (Yes, there are more.) Have a look at some oil companies. They try to connect both of them. At first glance absurd. But they do this to avoid bad reputation. And in that they succeed. Have a look at the structure of Logitech. They sell cheap and good stuff. They are known for being reliable at an affordable price. The Transporter will be their premium product. And to sell that product they have to change the customer's perception regarding Logitech. There are few people that will buy that product because it's manufactured by Logitech. They will think "what's that?". If they can get something similar they may buy it from a company with more reputation in manufacturing expensive stuff. If they can sell more Transporters ... we will see. But it is good for the Squeezebox. This is a segment where they are nearly in. But that will be hard because of the Squeezebox' price. Have a look at the price of the Pinnacle box. And Pinnacle has a pretty good reputation in that segment. I think it was no good idea to remove the SlimDevices references. They should have been using that up to the point where they can savely transition from SlimDevices to Logitech. Because they now have the power to push the SlimDevices products to new hights (but that needs invests). I see that -here in Germany- nobody knows about SlimDevices. If you pushed SlimDevices they appear new to the market and people get curious and are willing to try the new star (powered by Logitech's marketing/money in the background). But if they see Logitech they will think "puhh, what a price from such a company". Logitech must tell them that they have bought a great company with lots of know-how and that they can do these things now. But if they tell them (in Germany) that the name of that company was SlimDevices ... We will see. I won't say that the decision to be part of Logitech was a bad decision. Maybe they have more money and power to do even better development now. But if it's true that the lead developer has left the company... We had similar occurrences. When we grew larger some people have left the company because it was not the same as before. Those guys are simply not willing to do the change and see the change as a chance for the company and themselves. But there are others that see the chances. Yes, some sort of spirit may get lost and we may notice that (even if we should not). There is one thing I'm afraid of. Logitech might push SlimDevice's products into the mass market (like Media Markt / Saturn here in Germany). If they do not get the fast ROI they may get disappointed and can react like other large companies do: they push away SlimDevices or finish selling their products. Something we all have seen several times. And if you have the shareholders breathing down your neck...
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