Polycom acquires Obihai Technology
IterationIsFailure:
"Polycom Announces Agreement for Strategic Acquisition of Obihai Technology"
Lovely....The keyword that says it all is right in front of us...."Strategic", which means... OBI has a huge user base, so let's monetize it.
Translate to.... Expect to get screwed over as the end user consuming a product you were sold and marketing as never having a monthly fee. They will find ways to screw with us to eek in MRC (monthly reccuring charges). They always do.
Once the "just out of college, gotta justify that loan" kid consultants enter the fray and due-diligence begins (which I'm sure it already has), we will look like low hanging fruit and we'll be added as a contribution "savings" spreadsheet. Then comes "Change in terms in conditions", which will probably knock off all your connections without warning (BAU with acquisition incompetence) to force you to sign with heavy hand a new agreement which states they can charge monthly, then come the fees and nickel and diming...
We are and will be viewed as freeloaders (in their view - even though they, OBIHAI marketed and sold their product as never having a monthly fee). When and if this should occur, I hope the class action lawyers are geared up and ready to jump on this. Since idiot MBA's seem to be behind nearly every bad decision nowadays, keep an eye out for the internal decision makers that possess this "quality". It will be painful. Time to look for alternatives.
And to OBIHAI - If I'm flat out wrong on all the above, now would be a good time to put your post acquisition commitment in writing. Please release a statement with specific guarantees to existing users that no change in service will occur and existing services will remain without incremental (gotta pay for that acquisition) costs passed to the end user. If you fail to do this, then you choosing to passively acknowledge what is stated above.
WelshPaul:
OBIHAI prices doubled here in the UK just after the announcement so it doesn't look good!
https://www.ukvoipforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=5147#p5141
RFC3261:
Quote from: IterationIsFailure on January 21, 2018, 06:00:00 pm
Lovely....The keyword that says it all is right in front of us...."Strategic", which means...
Strategic means that OBi had *something* Polycom wanted. It could be the potential of service fees (as you jumped to), but it could also be that there is some specific IP, or specific people, that OBi has/had that were desirable to acquire (often multiple of those things).
While it is certainly possible to spread FUD, facts still usually matter for the educated, and we have very few facts at this point as to what the direct impact will be on the OBi products, capabilities, and support going forward.
SteveInWA:
Quote
While it is certainly possible to spread FUD, facts still usually matter for the educated, and we have very few facts at this point as to what the direct impact will be on the OBi products, capabilities, and support going forward.
Exactly this. Without any actual evidence, speculating about this is of no value.
IterationIsFailure:
Quote from: RFC3261 on January 22, 2018, 10:16:55 am
Quote from: IterationIsFailure on January 21, 2018, 06:00:00 pm
Lovely....The keyword that says it all is right in front of us...."Strategic", which means...
Strategic means that OBi had *something* Polycom wanted. It could be the potential of service fees (as you jumped to), but it could also be that there is some specific IP, or specific people, that OBi has/had that were desirable to acquire (often multiple of those things).
While it is certainly possible to spread FUD, facts still usually matter for the educated, and we have very few facts at this point as to what the direct impact will be on the OBi products, capabilities, and support going forward.
I understand what you're saying, and I respect your point of view, but would like to understand how you personally define "fact"? A press release? An official posting in the forums? You also seem to imply (although perhaps it wasn't your intent) I am not educated yet ironically no "facts" are provided to back such a statement. ;)
To clarify my post, it was actually intended to avoid FUD, thus my ask to OBI to make their position known.
All of the alleged "FUD" was based on historical fact with M&A activity (especially with tech companies) as I encourage anyone to name one acquisition that was net-positive for employees and customers which either didn't lead to immediate product retirement, new fees, massive layoffs, pass-the-buck outsourcing with reliability going down hill (with later layoffs), and/or massive firmware issues and non-responsiveness.(i.e. tenured people bail, newbies have no clue and jack it up).
Failure on our part to be proactive as consumers means the inverse opposite reaction becomes true in that we are forced to be reactive. Not sure about you, but I'd rather ask, make concerns known upfront, then sit around and wait for the outcome, which historical fact says is not good.
Bottom-line - I really want to be wrong about all this. I really do. But history says otherwise. I've been using my OBI202 for years without as even having to worry. That won't be the case now. After OBI's forced firmware update which blatantly disrespected user settings to disable FW updates, this only amplifies the point I'm trying to make above.
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