Amazon and iRobot said regulatory concerns made it impossible for the deal to move forward, sending the Roomba makers' shares plummeting.
Amazon terminates iRobot deal, Roomba maker to lay off 31% of staff::Amazon and iRobot said regulatory concerns made it impossible for the deal to move forward, sending the Roomba makers' shares plummeting.
They fired their whole education wing when my startup was just starting to work with them (15 or something years ago). No warning just a month after starting a new project (early stem outreach type program), fired them all.
So I don’t feel bad for iRobot. Sucks for the employees though.
iRobot said it would focus on margin improvements, reduce spending on research and development, and pause all work on “non-floorcare” products, including its air purifiers and robotic lawn mowers.
I doubt it. If you are stopping r&d and killing whole product lines, it makes sense to lay off the teams directly tied to those product lines. I'm guessing they needed Amazon to help them break into the market for areas outside of floor vacuums?
Call me a skeptic but I’d be willing to bet small amounts of money that Amazon would absolutely lay some or all of these people off after the initial onboarding.
iRobot has rested on their laurels and patent portfolio for years while others (ie Roborock) have lapped their products. Looks like they'll continue to decline into obscurity and count on patent troll lawsuits to survive. BTW, anyone want to buy a POS Roomba i7 that beats the hell out of furniture and baseboards while constantly getting jammed rollers?
Is it a busted company? I quickly found data for 2009-2022 and they've registered profit for every year till 2022 when they had their first loss. They've been around since the 90s.
Why the fuck would you name your robotics company that?
Ya know, when I named my Red Car "Christine" it was a joke and one for my own amusement, if it were a new model of car that I was selling there are a couple of reasons I wouldn't have done that.
Fyi: This is the company that makes roombas and thats the name people recognize. They where founded as irobot in the 90s and it was clearly copying apple.
Its almost suprising they didnt sue the irobot movie for its title, being that the original titel by Isaac Asimov spelled it “i, robot”