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For those that have not read this, here is a view from the inside (one of the development team)... just backs up how Logitech have mismanaged a great product, they did not know what they had and misinformed marketing management killed this great product line and brand (I work for a large US manufacturing company so I know exactly how marketing rule the roost often make big mistakes, not fully understanding products or consumers etc).... anyway here it is...
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This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper
hi all-
Before I say anything I want to thank Michael for his openness and candor on this thread. You rock Michael. But you should rename the thread to "New Not Squeezebox Radio"
It's been ages since I've posted here. I had to reset my password because it was 297 days old. When I left Logitech in June 2011 I had benevolent plans of doing 3rd party development, particularly on the Squeezeplay side, but it turned out I couldn't do it. The honest truth is because it was too painful after what I'd gone through with Squeezebox.
The beginning of the end for Squeezebox happened in Fall 2009. We had released Squeezebox Radio after what I can only describe as a grueling march. It was the hardest I've ever worked on a tech project. I was willing to put in that effort because I believed very strongly in the squeezebox line, and that Radio was going to be the first product to really seriously put us on the map, with Touch soon to follow. Unbeknownst to all of us doing that work in the trenches though, there was a plan already in the works that summer to shut everything down, and poach everyone for work on what eventually became Logitech Revue, the Google TV boat anchor that Logitech over-invested in.
So, Radio gets released, and sure enough a month or so later we get called into a meeting and told that the Mountain View office was being closed. Squeezebox was going to be pushed over to another business unit along with some of the employees, but a very high percentage of the software team was being redirected to work on Google TV. After about 10 days of being part of this GoogleTV team, the numbers started rolling in for Squeezebox Radio and it was selling far beyond expectations. Scrambling, they sent several of us back to working on Squeezebox. I was one of them, and was really relieved because from the get-go I didn't believe in Google TV (this doesn't make me Nostradamus; this was the general consensus of every engineer from the old Squeezebox team). However, it was difficult to imagine how things were going to move forward in the absence of people like Richard (squeezeplay/squeezeos architect), Tom (low level squeezeplay UI and monkey wrench programmer), and Caleb (acoustic genius), who stayed with GoogleTV.
But, as former SlimDevices CTO Dean liked to quote "the graveyards are full of people the world could not live without", so I thought hey, maybe we find a way to move things forward. Michael and Felix will fill in some gaps, Andy's still here, and maybe we'll get a quality hire or two.
Sadly, we moved into a business unit that could not have been more the polar opposite of how we did things in Mountain View. Incredible politics and bureaucracy ruled there, and thus began the long trend downward for Squeezebox. I'm sure the paper pushers from that period would speak of how they "turned squeezebox around", but the principal reason the dollars went from red to black during that time was because of the market validation (with practically zero actual marketing, I might add) of Squeezebox Radio, and to a lesser extent Squeezebox Touch (still IMO the best Squeezebox ever, but more of a niche product compared to Radio; nevertheless, it also blew expectations out the window and they had to scramble to make more). In that time with that group, we brought to market exactly zero new hardware products. We'd work on something for months, then get it unceremoniously cancelled. Lather, rinse, repeat. Some of these products were clearly wrong turns. Others were clearly going to sell like crazy. Not one thing made it to the point of building a prototype. The only significant contribution from that 1.5-2 year period was the squeezebox mobile app, which Michael (and to a lesser extent, Felix and I) did a really nice job with.
After Squeezebox was wiped from the roadmap for about the Nth time in 2011, I got out. Logitech was why I got to work full-time on Squeezebox in the first place, but (for me) they'd destroyed everything that was there that made me want to be there in the first place. Worse (for me) yet, they didn't destroy it quickly, but slowly and painfully. As I would tell Steven (another ex-Squeezebox employee), "it's like they shot my dog but then made me live with it for two years. It's like, yes that's my dog, but EWW".
After my departure, there was a brief light of hope when the almost-no-heartbeat Squeezebox product line was shifted to another business group, run mostly by the Ultimate Ears folks (headphone company, another Logitech acquisition). Squeezebox alive again?? Turns out, not so much.
So, after almost exactly 3 years since Squeezebox Radio was released, we have the Ultimate Ears Smart Radio by Logitech (catchy, huh? good god). I view this product as:
1. First and foremost, a rebranding project and little more
2. UX changes to fit whatever the marketing department of the month thinks is important
3. An explicit severing of ties from the "legacy" squeezeboxes
The product itself...man, it's so notable in how not notable it is. There isn't one new "wow" thing this has over the 3-year-old SB Radio. And it's hitting the market at US$179 MSRP. Ouch. Good luck with that, UE.
I write all of this history here because, again for me, this is the final chapter where I can close the book. At times, working on squeezebox was the best job I ever had. It was certainly the one I was most passionate about. In the later stages, it became impossibly frustrating and untenable.
I continue to extend good wishes to my past co-workers who are still doing their best to deliver innovative products. Maybe something good will eventually be released (because this isn't it). It just won't be a squeezebox.
Squeezebox is dead, long live Squeezebox.
cheers,
#!/ben
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29-08-2012, 10:41 AM
E. & O.E.
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