Essential Raises $300M • Hacker News Board

Re: Essential Raises $300M

#61

Post by HillaryBriss » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC

vqc wrote: post #10

rayuela wrote: post #3

This one honestly makes no sense to me. How is this company being valued at a Billion dollars with a flagship product that is indistinguishable in features and price from any of its competitors. Who the hell is going to gamble on a new, no name brand for a $700 product that is exactly like the very reputable products from Apple, Samsung, and 50 other phone manufacturers?!?

Maybe investor expectation is that a company like HTC or LG or some other none-Samsung/Apple/Google/Amazon company will buy Essential in order to get a strong team that is building a suite of products that tries to compete with Samsung/Apple/Google/Amazon. Can that justify the valuation?

I'm trying to understand what the appeal would be. Let's say you're LG. You're already doing pretty well as a company selling many types of consumer appliances and electronics.

You already know how to make really really good phones, too. Maybe not quite as good as Samsung, but still, very very good.

What does Essential bring to the table? Market share? Design skills? I mean, aren't they contracting out the manufacturing to some low-cost company?

I don't know. If you were LG and felt you needed marketing and design skills, wouldn't you just make a deal with some super star, internationally known design firms (or someone) and add them to your team somehow?

Why buy a whole expensive outside company when, at best, they know a few more things about phones than you do?

Re: Essential Raises $300M

#62

Post by axaxs » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

mirsadm wrote: post #58

axaxs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't attack his history, I don't know it well. I will attack his sustainability, however. This phone won't sell. It is not innovative enough nor in touch with the market. I will say I watched his interview at codecon, and he seemed completely self absorbed. It didn't help that he kept bragging about Android popularity, which he had little to do with, on top of its awful design.

Providing a stock Android experience and timely updates is enough innovation when it comes to Android phones. If they manage that then I'll give them a shot.

The pixel and nexus phones did this. They, comparatively, did -not- sell well. Nokia is claiming to do this, but the jury is still out. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it's not novel, either.

Re: Essential Raises $300M

#63

Post by newjersey » Sat, Jun 10, 2017, 2:30 AM UTC

hdra wrote: post #29

newjersey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? I can't see how fragmentation can be good for anyone. The web has made progress since the jar days but even if you go the web route, you are still a serf (to continue the analogy that we are all serfs sorry couldn't find the link). I wouldn't support a different app store that competes with Google for control of Android.

Fragmentation isn't even a thing for most people in the market for a smartphone. Anecdotally, most of my friends who uses Android isn't even aware of Google, the search giant. Most of them are only aware of Google as the account provider that they use to sign in to their phone.

Sorry for not clarifying. I wasn't talking about consumers but rather service providers who have to maintain a presence in all major platforms. From what I understand, Android exists because Google was fed up trying to get Google maps and mail and search applications on all j2me, symbian, and what not devices.