151–160 of 387 posts
I wonder how engineering integration works for an acquisition this size (Wikipedia: ~1694 employees). Google interviews test for very specific things so it's unlikely every engineer in Fitbit would have passed. Fitbit's big enough that I doubt you'd re-interview every engineer and doing that would scare engineers away, but Fitbit's not big enough where you'd let Fitbit continue to do their own thing for a long period…
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I have a Fitbit and I love this acquisition. I want to be able to put my fitness data in the rest of the Google ecosystem. The more data Google has on me, the more use I get out of Google's tools. I really don't care that it has tons of data on me, Google has been super responsible of my data and its uses. The risk/reward is 100% worth.
I read this honestly expecting a /s at the end. If you told me this was a failed attempt at obvious sarcasm now, I'd totally still believe you.
I have a friend who works for the government and laments at how much red tape there is to acquire or link any dataset and wishes for more data acquisition.
To be fair, her use cases were sincerely benign - being able to target people who qualify for more welfare/govt assistance, and being able to make the govt website more helpful/discoverable for support.
Though she definitely subscribes to her data being used for helpful purposes from bigtech
No thanks and no deal.
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> Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along. How can these both be true? - it's bad all US legacy media is owne…
>If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? Because what Google wants to buy is their marketshare and existing userbase. I very much doubt fitbit has any tech or products google couldn't make themselves in a few months. The longer fitbit sucks compared to their competition the lower that becomes.
Considering how absolutely dreadful Google's hardware (pixel line, pixel watch) is nowadays, and how unfinished all of their software is, no, Google would not be able to make any of that in a few months.
I wonder how engineering integration works for an acquisition this size (Wikipedia: ~1694 employees). Google interviews test for very specific things so it's unlikely every engineer in Fitbit would have passed. Fitbit's big enough that I doubt you'd re-interview every engineer and doing that would scare engineers away, but Fitbit's not big enough where you'd let Fitbit continue to do their own thing for a long period…
None of our engineers had to do a coding test to get their Google offer. :)
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I read this honestly expecting a /s at the end. If you told me this was a failed attempt at obvious sarcasm now, I'd totally still believe you.
It reads like sarcasm but it's more a sign that our views do not leak out of our echo chamber. I have a friend who works for the government and laments at how much red tape there is to acquire or link any dataset and wishes for more data acquisition. To be fair, her use cases were sincerely benign - being able to target people who qualify for more welfare/govt assistance, and being able to make the govt website more…
But...it would also greatly increase the damage any hacker could do.
Same applies to Google. It’s super convenient to have everything “on Google”. Until the day Google is exposed/hacked/turns evil. Then it’s a disaster.
Hoping the above won’t happen is not a strategy but a gamble.
Translation: Google now has access to all your fitness and health data and will be integrated into Google Fit. No thanks and no deal.
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The assurance that it's not going to be used for Ads is the only thing that makes this acceptable. Instead of it being on some random fitbit server on someone's Cloud, it'll be held securely on Google servers.
Really though, how long do we expect that arrangement to last? The Facebook WhatsApp thing makes it pretty clear to me that they can afford to walk back on that arrangement as soon as they feel they can afford to take the PR hit. For something with as small of a market share as Fitbit, I suspect that won't take very long at all.
However, there are probably ways they can leap around that. For instance, new devices and a new platform, using the Fitbit talent and technology, but marketed as a new thing, could probably be used for advertising. Then they just need to get everyone over to their new health platform.
I also think a ten year commitment is a very poor concession for the EU to have extracted: It just means they're punting off society being harmed a while. For a company that will likely be around in 100 years or more, IBM-style, that's not a good concession.
More evidence that Google can't create any good, innovative products anymore - they just acquire them. Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that. Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT. etc. etc.
More evidence that Google can't create any good, innovative products anymore - they just acquire them. Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that. Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT. etc. etc.
whats wrong with Google Pixel