Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Smart lock company Otto is suspending operations after a failed acquisition agreement. In a blog post late last year, CEO and founder Sam Jadallah says the company made an acquisition deal that limited its ability to fundraise, but the buyer pulled out at the last minute, leaving Otto with no remaining cash. The first locks were supposed to ship within the next few weeks, but "Otto will not ship next month and it may never ship," says Jadallah. The company will "evaluate [its] options" for moving forward in the coming weeks.
The Otto Lock was pitched as a tiny and stylish, but very expensive, smart lock. It sold for $699, and was intended for wealthy homeowners.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/1/16838016/otto-smart-lock-startup-suspends-operations
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 05 2018, @02:18PM (6 children)
Risky area to do business in - sure they can afford it, but will they choose to?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @03:17PM
So true. I started a business to produce the rolex of cock rings and never sold a single one.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:44PM (4 children)
The smartness of a lock and the elegance of the gears hardly matters when there is a glass window 5 feet from the door, and the door itself can be splintered by a door ram you can buy on Amazon.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 05 2018, @06:57PM (3 children)
6 lb sledgehammers are also quite effective... there was a gang with a van and a hammer that emptied out houses around my Uncle's neighborhood (in the 1970s) while people were at work - they knew the police response time was about 30 minutes, so they'd load what they could in 20 and split.
Locks are for gentlemen.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday January 05 2018, @08:44PM (1 child)
Given the incredible exploits with Bluetooth and Intel chip flaws, I'm not sure any computer or security device in the world could be considered "locks" anymore. Not when I can run software on my phone that opens up your door, locks your gun safe so you can't open it, crashes all your iphones and androids to prevent emergency calls, and finally reroutes all communications from your router to my network instead :) *Maybe* if you have an old analog telephone you could defeat me, but I can cut the lines beforehand :) Only the security alarms with cellular backup might work, but most of those went defunct after TDMA was phased out. Even then, running my own version of an intercepting access point for cell phones that specifically blocks all the VPN connections making it work......
Is there any device out there that can't be owned in a matter of minutes with the right software and hardware?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 05 2018, @09:11PM
The thing is, that knowledge is rare, and merely demonstrating that you can do such things puts you on a very short list...
All in all, I'd put a brick through a window first - just because anybody can do that, and bricks don't hold fingerprints well.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Friday January 05 2018, @09:03PM
Or just ram the facade in a stolen truck, load and boogie. That's why a lot of stores have put steel stanchions in front of the doors.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @02:47PM (7 children)
somebody locked them out from competing...
In fact, 3/4 of the acquisitions I have known about were about sucking out assets and talent and letting the acquired company die.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 05 2018, @03:41PM (5 children)
That's business. If you've got a $1M company with potential to grow to a $100M company in the next few years, but you'll be competition for an existing $500M company, the $500M company won't even hesitate to buy you out for $10M (or often less) just to snuff the potential competition. Maybe they'll pick up your unique ideas and market them under their brand, more likely that's more trouble than it's worth.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by drussell on Friday January 05 2018, @04:20PM (4 children)
Indeed. It even happened to Homer...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 05 2018, @04:36PM (3 children)
That does happen, too (the Homer buyout...)
I worked for a place that was built from the ashes of a company that won a patent infringement lawsuit. Little company won a judgement against a bigger company, but the problem was that the judgement was for more than the little company was worth, so the bigger company bought the little company and shut it down, avoiding paying for the judgement in the process (sound hinky, why didn't the market cap of the smaller company increase by the amount of the judgement? Apparently a factor of 2 in the heft of the mosquito wasn't enough to bother the 800lb gorilla...) 300 people out of work, huge factory building stood empty for years...
5-10 years later the people from the bought-out company mostly ended up with a new startup in a similar, but not competing, line of business.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
I'm calling bullshit.
With a judgement in hand, why would little company sell for less? By choice perhaps? In which case there was no injustice done.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 05 2018, @07:10PM
Stories change depending on the teller, here's a few related news articles:
http://thefacts.com/news/article_6d7774d1-7997-549e-a517-7115a3ebfabd.html [thefacts.com]
On February 1, 1999, the Company purchased the electrophysiology business of Sulzer Medica,
Ltd., including Intermedics, Inc., for an aggregate cost of approximately $772 million in cash, net of
postclosing adjustments. This includes $200 million for a settlement of the Company’s intellectual
property litigation with Intermedics. Intermedics was a global leader in the design, development,
manufacture and distribution of pacemakers and pacemaker leads.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/929987/000095013100001857/0000950131-00-001857-d2.pdf [sec.gov]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @10:27PM
Because the owners of the little company either figured it was better to get bought out, or that it would take years more to actually collect on the judgment. In either case, the asset value of the judgment was discounted, so the stockholder equity was lower, so the market cap was lower.
Was this a privately owned company? It's often a no-brainer for a small group of owners to take a cash payout of x times their original investment. Companies with more, or institutional investors *may* be willing to see the judgment through to the end, based on their personal risk tolerance and second-guessing of company's management's opinion.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:21AM
This one looks different though:
It's more along the lines of "promise to acquire company, hamstring them so they go out of business, then buy up their assets for pennies on the dollar". That happened a lot during the dot-com boom, when perfectly viable companies (not actual dot-coms) were sucked up by bigger, established predatory companies.