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Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

cnet.com

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Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#51

Post by tnash »

skc wrote: post #46

Hmm, so nobody has brought up the possibility of some sort of Apple + Nike collusion (for lack of a better word) here? Cook sits on the Nike board. Who's to say he didn't let the folks at Nike in on what Apple were working on and the two companies decided to make some sort of deal seeing as the two products would have areas of overlap. I can see a scenario where Nike features prominently as a partner for Apple's wear…

I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of the laid-off employees end up working at Apple.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#52

Post by dang »

kjhughes wrote: post #45

Update: Nike confirmed a small number of layoffs but denies FuelBand shutdown, according to re/code: “The Nike+ FuelBand SE remains an important part of our business,” the company said in a statement emailed to Re/code. “We will continue to improve the Nike+ FuelBand App, launch new METALUXE colors, and we will sell and support the Nike+ FuelBand SE for the foreseeable future.” http://recode.net/2014/04/18/nike-denie…

All: should we change the url of the post to this one? It's not clear which is better.

Edit: there are arguments on both sides. Since the Cnet article seems to be the original source, let's stick with it.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#53

Post by jamesaguilar »

dang wrote: post #52
kjhughes wrote: post #45

Update: Nike confirmed a small number of layoffs but denies FuelBand shutdown, according to re/code: “The Nike+ FuelBand SE remains an important part of our business,” the company said in a statement emailed to Re/code. “We will continue to improve the Nike+ FuelBand App, launch new METALUXE colors, and we will sell and support the Nike+ FuelBand SE for the foreseeable future.” http://recode.net/2014/04/18/nike-denie…

All: should we change the url of the post to this one? It's not clear which is better. Edit: there are arguments on both sides. Since the Cnet article seems to be the original source, let's stick with it.

I would say yes. Fixing misinformation (even honest misinformation) on the front page is a good thing.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#55

Post by notatoad »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #53
dang wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All: should we change the url of the post to this one? It's not clear which is better. Edit: there are arguments on both sides. Since the Cnet article seems to be the original source, let's stick with it.

I would say yes. Fixing misinformation (even honest misinformation) on the front page is a good thing.

i don't think it's clear that there's any misinformation in the cnet article. Nike is officially denying killing the product, but they aren't denying that they've laid off the majority of their hardware team.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#56

Post by osteele »

dingaling wrote: post #43
rhizome wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's at the expense of credibility, but it's CNet. These terms have actual meanings, "laid off" when the position is being eliminated, "fired" when it's not.

Having a US head-office I'm frequently bemused / confused as to why companies in that country so readily lay-off the staff of canceled projects, instead of redeploying them internally to fill other vacancies. Particularly in large corps there's nearly always some other division crying-out for staff with hands-on knowledge of their industry and product, instead of spending $50,000 to hire someone out of college and th…

I don't know the particulars of the Nike position. In general it can be because of geography (if the cancelled project was run out of a different region, which can be especially true for skunkworks or acquihired teams), or job specificity (it's not clear how many sensor engineers, low-power engineers, or even hardware and software engineers Nike needs if it's not dong projects like this).

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#57

Post by notatoad »

Bahamut wrote: post #30
dragonwriter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once Android Wear and Apple wearables start rolling out, it's going to be a slaughter out there. For Nike, its already a slaughter -- FitBit has the lion's share of the market for activity trackers, Nike was in third well behind Jawbone UP. [1] [1] http://mobihealthnews.com/28825/fitbit-jawbone-nike-had-97-p...

Those are some interesting stats, since amongst runner circles (at least here in DC), Garmins are the most popular by far. Could they be classifying these devices differently?

from what i've seen of the fitness tracker market, the customers buying these aren't typically athletes, they're dieters. People buying devices to track their workouts are a smaller market than people buying wristbands to track their steps over the course of a workday. Fitbit is for people who want a record of the fact that they took the stairs instead of the elevator every day this week.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#58

Post by jamesaguilar »

notatoad wrote: post #55
jamesaguilar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say yes. Fixing misinformation (even honest misinformation) on the front page is a good thing.

i don't think it's clear that there's any misinformation in the cnet article. Nike is officially denying killing the product, but they aren't denying that they've laid off the majority of their hardware team.

It says they will stop making wearable hardware in the title, which Nike is flatly denying.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#59

Post by clarky07 »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #58
notatoad wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't think it's clear that there's any misinformation in the cnet article. Nike is officially denying killing the product, but they aren't denying that they've laid off the majority of their hardware team.

It says they will stop making wearable hardware in the title, which Nike is flatly denying.

not really. They said they will continue to sell the current device and support it with software. They make no claims to possibly making any new hardware as far as I could see.

Re: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware

#60

Post by hyp0 »

thinkling wrote: post #47
hyp0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see iWatches as a big market for a startup, or add-on for Nike - but not for Apple. The profits can't move their meter. The problem is input: Apple solved it for phones (touch screen). They tried voice-recog for shuffle iPod, but dropped it in the next iteration. If they really are making a mass-market iWatch, I think they must have solved this problem in some other way. (Glass solves it, so maybe it won't be a…

I find it interesting that voice-reco is a primary input mechanism for both the Amazon Fire TV and Amazon's scanner gadget for their Fresh grocery delivery service. The Fire TV is not on battery power, so it's not surprising there. But the scanner wand gadget presumably doesn't have much of a CPU in it, nor does it rely on a nearby smartphone.

Yes, they claim their voice reco "really works" - I don't find it a credible claim... except that, when you have a confined univese of possible matches (e.g. grocery items), it doesn't so much have to recognise the word, as distinguish between the known candidates. For example, just counting the number of syllables can narrows it down (even identif it: yif expecting a digit, only "7" has two). And no verbs etc.

Isn't the scanner online (so it can tell amazon what you ordered)? If so, I expect it uses servers, like siri and google voice. (Also processors are pretty small these days: the CPU in a phone takes up dramatically less space than the display or battery).

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