Samsung to buy SmartThings

In any acquisition though, there is also something called Goodwill which tends to put an arbitrary figure into the valuation. It isn’t just assets - liabilities + projected profits or anything simple. I know you probably understand this already, mostly just adding to the discussion.

If true, good for the owners, bad for the company. Samsung will ruin it and claim it’s the next big thing. I’ll be moving to the next real thing.

Homekit is not a hub or control platform. It’s integration at the iOS level so that you can control your devices from a single point like speaking to Siri. Apple has not said anything about hub’s, standards or the like. I highly doubt they will because it’s not a core business for them. The most I could see them doing is saying “Designed for Apple Home” or something like that to ensure other manufacturers a compliant. So Philips Hue would presumably still use their own hub and you could control that hub via voice through Siri.

I am perfectly aware of what HomeKit is, I don’t need an explanation. What Apple is doing removes the need for a hub. I don’t need an in-between to tell my lights I am home. My only use of the Smarthings is trying to have a central point of control, it that is done using a hub or on the phone itself, that doesn’t bother me, I just needs to work.

What Apple is doing removes the need for a hub. I don’t need an in-between to tell my lights I am home.

uhhh… yes you do. Homekit does not remove the need for a hub. How do you expect your iPhone to speak to Z-Wave switches or directly to Philips Hue bulbs? You need something that the iPhone can speak to which in turn speaks to the various devices. That would be a hub of some sort. All Homekit does is give you OS level access / integration of commands that can speak to hubs.

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Might I suggest some of the Homekit discussion transfer over to the topic where it has been discussed:

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There could be a positive to a Samsung purchase. This would give SmartThings patent protection. They could concentrate on connecting devices and let corporate lawyers fend off patent claims.

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We can officially talk about our merger with Samsung. It is going to be exciting and I am glad we can now answer your questions and concerns directly.

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Congrats, guys! Excited to hear what’s next!

I will comment a bit more tonight but this is really an amazing time for SmartThings and the community. The promise of remaining independent and separate from Samsung has shown vision and intelligence and will allow us to fulfill on the dreams we have had for this company when we founded it early in 2012. I am so proud of what we have built, but what we are about to build will be epic.

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Congratulations @Ben and SmartThings; it’s really been gratifying to see how you guys took this project to something that’s already changing the industry. It’s one of the few Kickstarter’s I’ve backed where I really felt like I was backing a big idea rather than buying something, and with 25 “things” in my house, I’m pretty all in now.

I a bit MORE nervous about the potential for support on other platforms now, in the same way Nest being bought by Google is likely to impact the direction of their innovations. Announce a client for my primarily Windows based household though and that’ll take care of those concerns nicely ;-).

–jim
@jameslew on Twitter

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@Ben FYI, the blog is down :frowning: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://blog.smartthings.com

I have questions, but maybe they’re already answered in the blog.

/nevermind. It’s back up, probably the initial hit when everyone just got the mailer.

Congrats @Ben I hope this all works out to plan and the dream of SmartThings stays alive and true.

I really hope you guys stay committed to the community and keep this going. The next few weeks, early months, will determine if I will keep SmartThings or make a switch.

@Ben and SmartThings team, congrats on all your hard work paying off. PLEASE don’t let this acquisition ruin SmartThings. There is a lot of potential with this and the community is great.

Thank you for the kind words!

We’re all very excited for what’s coming. We’re heads down with the same goal we’ve always had - to be the most open and amazing platform for your home.

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Sorry, I am just not excited about this. I offer below some direct quotes from Marc Shedroff, Vice-President of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center.

“we think there’s an opportunity to acquire small teams, fit them into Samsung, and have them build products as part of the company

“Unlike a traditional accelerator, these small entities are internal startups. The people who join the accelerator are exclusively funded by Samsung, but we keep them separate from the big company, both geographically and organizationally. That way they can continue to build products the way they would if they were a five- or six-person startup. Ultimately, we want those products to get integrated into the big company: Samsung.

“we give them the benefits of a big company, which provides financial support, extensive distribution, and other resources. After all, we sell 450 million phones a year and 50 million TVs. The end result, we hope, will be game-changing software products that can connect all of our devices.”

“One of the things that we hope the Open Innovation Center can do is help get us into the fabric of Silicon Valley, and, hopefully, over time, bring some of that culture back to Korea

“we have a set of people who work at OIC and have a relationship with the developers and leading startups all over Silicon Valley to bring these startups onto our platforms, like Gear, or to work closely together to create entirely new, integrated experiences for our devices.”

“The very explicit goal of the accelerator, as well as the M&A team, the partnership team, and the ventures team, is to affect the core software products that are on all of our flagship devices: phones, TVs, tablets, cameras, anything Samsung makes.”

You can come to your own conclusions, but as someone who has been involved personally in a half dozen acquisitions (including the Aldus one by Adobe), “the acquired company will continue as its own entity” is pretty much par for the course in marketing speak, and rarely turns out to be the eventuality of the process. Seems to me ‘open’ is a relative term…

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So does this mean, the things listed in the “Devices we don’t have” thread, have a chance of being produced? :slight_smile: Will we see Samsung branded Z(wave|igbee) devices? I understand there might be confidentiality agreements, but the details of the blog were kind of vague. Yes, we get everyone is excited :wink:

@Ben, what are you most excited about? The promise of more developers? more hardware? What was Samsung most interested in?

So many questions. Maybe when the two companies get their ducks in a row and get settled in, another blog post…please?

My prediction, based on the quoted statements above, would be that SmartThings will have significant additional resources to expand on the platform until it reaches a point of value that samsung takes it to Korea to be “the next big thing” , exclusive to samsung devices.

I’ll let Ben provide you a more thorough response but I want to mention that the Samsung Accelerator is separate from SmartThings.

Speaking candidly, I don’t believe that our founders would have even considered this as an option if it didn’t contribute to our goal - or rather, if it didn’t enable us to achieve that goal of the leading open platform for home automation.

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I hope you’re right Tyler.