Speaking at an event for analysts and investors, Logitech CEO Guerrino De Luca characterized his company’s ill-fated bet on Google TV—in the form of the Logitech Revue set-top box—as a tremendous error that combined with missteps in the EMEA region cost the company some $100 million in operating profit. De Luca characterized the Revue launch as a “mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature,” and doesn’t plan to take Logitech down the Google TV route again. De Luca believes Google TV will still take off, but it will be a “grandchild” of today’s Google TV, and Logitech will stay “on the bench” for the foreseeable future in the Google TV world.
A year ago, Logitech bet heavily on the Revue (check out our Logitech Revue review), working hard to produce the first Google TV set top box and get it into consumer retail channels in time for the end-of-year holiday crush. But nothing worked out like Logitech planned: as soon as Google TV launched, online video providers started blocking the service, meaning the selection of programming available to Google TV users slowed to a trickle in short order. And at $300, that made the Revue a hard sell…and they didn’t sell. Logitech revealed that initial sales of the Revue totalled just $5 million and by mid-year CEO Gerald P. Quindlen had left the company, and Logitech was fire-saling the devices for $99, and with De Lucasteping in as acting CEO.
De Luca described the company’s effort on the Revue as executing “a full scale launch with a beta product and it cost us dearly.”
The future of Google TV is itself somewhat hazy: although Google has been shifting Google TV to the Android platform—and is now enabling Android developers to code for Google TV, the technology as it exists today relies heavily on Adobe Flash. And mobile Flash wasn’t the only thing Adobe killed off in its surprise announcement earlier this week: Flash for connected TVs also got the axe, although Adobe will still support HTML apps with embedded Flash and Adobe Air apps with embedded Flash technology. Google has been moving Google TV slowly away from Flash; the latest 3.1 update supports Plex, for instance.
The only mistake is Logitech. Logitech didn’t put forth the effort of making sure the application was maintained, updated and enhanced. USB capability? Not even there. Their talking about 3.1 as the next thing for the Revue but they should be talking about Android 4.x. USB plug and play is a huge part of interacting with newer features such as karaoke channel and other interactive websites. However, Logitech has always been just about there. Their A.D.H.D business logic puts them in problematic situations. Always bouncing around from one thing to the next but not settling on making their product with quality and support in mind.
I agree. And it makes me mad that a company with a reputation like Logitech didn’t think this through. And the sad part is that they are basically saying if they don’t sell a ton of units, they will not support the users that did buy them. I feel like this is dead in the water. I should have bought a Boxee or Roku IMO.