Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Do consider that some times conglomerates buy companies as a way to hire people.
(Microsoft does it a lot--they buy a company not so much for the product but for the IP, their resources, their staff, and especially the execs and techies.)
The big question about Stanza is: what about the people? Were they dumped on the street? Or are they spending their time twiddling their thumbs in their cubicles? Are they in charge of the iOS kindle app or other projects? Stanza itself is more than a piece of software; behind it there are algorithms, coding expertise, iOS expertise... Lots of value in that operation beyond an ebook reader app and Amazon has shown themselves to be extremely clever in finding value where others see none.
Things are never cut-n-dry in the big leagues.  |
The Stanza people were kept on for a very short time, and then they were dumped on the street. I heard they were never actually given anything to do. Amazon didnt just buy stanza, it bought Lexcycle which had a decent database of OPDS catalogues which Stanza accessed. Some months after the people disappeared, so did the database, and then a month or two after that when the domain came up for renewal.. well.. it just didnt. Site dead, catalog info dead, Stanza people out looking for new jobs. One fell on his feet. I have no idea about the rest. Of course with software purchase being what it is, those guys can never replicate Stanza in any form. Amazon updated Stanza just once, so those of us who had updated from iOS 4.3.5 could still use it (but only after hassling them long and hard) and what they gave us was crippled at best. Since then, every IOS update seems to make it less and less usable.
Before this, though, when we were trying to get them to do something so we could still keep using it, they (the CSRs) completely denied it was anything to do with Amazon. Clearly, the powers that were had no intention of continuing support, and had not even bothered telling the customer service people that anything other than a Kindle app existed.
Things may not be cut and dried in the big leagues, but in this case, they were.