North (formerly Thalmic Labs, now Google)

[rangersfan]

This company's approach has never made much sense to me, but I have never ran a business albeit a successful one. I really hope that they are able to build a successful company.

The Federal Government has caught wind of the layoffs and are freezing their investment.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/918...c-layoffs/

[panamaniac]

You are not the first or only person to have doubts, but they have been very successful in attracting startup and venture capital.

[Spokes]

Wow, the freezing of investment is a very interesting turn of events

[rangersfan]

The investment was to grow there manufacturing operation, since they laid off most of there production staff it makes sense.

[Spokes]

I just wonder why they did it immediately after getting the funding.

[robdrimmie]

Rampant speculation follows.

It may be the case that owning the manufacturing process outright was the wrong choice. Perhaps after a few months of reality it was determined that there are better/cheaper/faster ways to build the products elsewhere, or they were able to use their own facility as a lever to get better deals with manufacturers elsewhere. The price drop may or may not be relevant here.

Alternatively, there's a lot of valuable intellectual property and deeply skilled people (not just tech - sales, marketing, fashion, retail, lots of other roles outside of manufacturing) that would be attractive to acquirers, and Amazon's Alexa fund might not explicitly be about acquisition but it has to be at least a real consideration when funding companies. Owning manufacturing (especially the labor burden) may have been a block.

Extremely unlikely: During the HQ2 process Amazon was convinced enough by the Toronto bid of the value of an office in this area, and North being a close partner via the Alexa fund made it easy. The existence of a new/expanded Toronto office demonstrates the appeal of the area, but is more likely to be a vote against a Waterloo office.

[greybird]

Rampant speculation follows.

It may be the case that owning the manufacturing process outright was the wrong choice. Perhaps after a few months of reality it was determined that there are better/cheaper/faster ways to build the products elsewhere, or they were able to use their own facility as a lever to get better deals with manufacturers elsewhere. The price drop may or may not be relevant here.

You're giving me flashbacks to BlackBerry moving its production to Mexico, which became one of the nails in the coffin...

[jeffster]

Rampant speculation follows.

It may be the case that owning the manufacturing process outright was the wrong choice. Perhaps after a few months of reality it was determined that there are better/cheaper/faster ways to build the products elsewhere, or they were able to use their own facility as a lever to get better deals with manufacturers elsewhere. The price drop may or may not be relevant here.

You're giving me flashbacks to BlackBerry moving its production to Mexico, which became one of the nails in the coffin...

I think the issue with BlackBerry was that the "Waterloo way" and the opinion from their staff was that business people had zero need for any fun apps and non-productivity apps and therefore no need to made a device capable of running "real" apps. So Apple and Android ended up burying BlackBerry large.

I had a friend that worked there and I had suggested that BlackBerry needs to compete with Apple and Android (long before Apple had the following of what BlackBerry had) and the opinion was that Apple would absolutely fail with their "stupid keyless" phone and Android would never take off either because of security issues (if you recall, some early Androids did have keyboards).

As for "North", perhaps people still aren't ready for their product. However, I don't think moving production to somewhere cheaper is going to hurt them. And I don't think the Mexico production hurt BlackBerry. BlackBerry had already cooked their dinner due to their stubbornness. BlackBerry would be still huge if only they listened to all those that told them that they needed to changed years before they decided to change.

[robdrimmie]

As for "North"

Why did you scarequote North, but not BlackBerry?

[rangersfan]

The company has sold the technology associated with their Myo product to an American firm.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/948...echnology/

[timio]

I never really understood the appeal of the armband. Sure, it was shiny, but there are other technologies out there already that do the same thing with less effort.

[JoeKW]

The way it worked was exceedingly cool but killer use cases never came to be.

[taylortbb]

Looks like North is being acquired by Alphabet/Google.

A vision fades: Alphabet buying Canadian smart glasses pioneer North after years of struggle, sources say

[panamaniac]

I think this bit of the article pretty much sums it up:

... " In interviews, many former employees and people close to the company describe its cofounders as visionary technologists who stumbled badly in the marketplace. Now it leaves a legacy of products few people wanted, plus a trail of aggravated staffers and investors who once bought into its vision. " ...

I imagine any staff that are kept will be incorporated into the existing Google offices?

[tomh009]

It'll depend on what they plan to do. If they intend to continue with the business, they may want to keep North's existing space. Google's new building is still just a hole in the ground.