I wonder if preventing their competitors from using Kiva is part of the goal for this acquisition.
Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
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Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#12It's a great time to start a robotics company and I hope this exit will further accelerate the pace of new companies being created! Kiva is also a great example of nailing a single high-value problem even if it's not the sexiest challenge.
Unfortunately you can't start a robotics startup with almost no money (like sw startups) !
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#13One interesting question is what will happen to the current clients of Kiva (of which many are competing with Amazon in ecommerce market) newegg. etc ??
I think they will be getting the same service from Kiva. Netflix is one of the biggest user of EWS, yet, Amazon is pushing hard on their streaming service too.
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Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#14One interesting question is what will happen to the current clients of Kiva (of which many are competing with Amazon in ecommerce market) newegg. etc ??
I think they will be getting the same service from Kiva. Netflix is one of the biggest user of EWS, yet, Amazon is pushing hard on their streaming service too.
If amazon wouldn't have offered EWS to netflix or have stopped offering it to netflix, netflix could have easily use some other cloud competitor. Maybe netflix would had to pay a bit more , but i don't think it would have been a big difference.
I don't know much about kiva but if their service is hard to replace and is a unique competitive advantage(and looking at the purchase price,it seems so), amazon would use this advantage.Amazon is known to play hardball.
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#15I would have gone for this Norwegian system: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iyVDMp2bL9c
Interesting video but the system appears to only be a small parts solution. I don't think it could even handle a 20" monitor.
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#16I would have gone for this Norwegian system: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iyVDMp2bL9c
That system may be in Norway, but the technology is made by a company called Swisslog, which is located in Switzerland.
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#17I wonder if preventing their competitors from using Kiva is part of the goal for this acquisition.
Or, perhaps even better, making your competition your customer.
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#18It's a great time to start a robotics company and I hope this exit will further accelerate the pace of new companies being created! Kiva is also a great example of nailing a single high-value problem even if it's not the sexiest challenge.
Unfortunately you can't start a robotics startup with almost no money (like sw startups) !
Kiva Systems was started with almost no money...
It's actually one of the better stories I've heard. The founder basically found various phds that were researching in related fields and convinced them to work for equity.
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#19I wonder if preventing their competitors from using Kiva is part of the goal for this acquisition.
Or, perhaps even better, making your competition your customer.
I agree, this is more likely given their behavior with AWS. They're happy to rent their IP and infrastructure to competitors.
Re: Amazon acquiring Kiva Systems for $775 million
#20It's a great time to start a robotics company and I hope this exit will further accelerate the pace of new companies being created! Kiva is also a great example of nailing a single high-value problem even if it's not the sexiest challenge.
Unfortunately you can't start a robotics startup with almost no money (like sw startups) !
Yup agreed, though I would like to know what the parent commenter experiences have been, since it seems hes involved with some robotics/AI research.
I previously posted the following about when will the robotic revolution will occur, to which I got some pretty good answers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3630139