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Pebble Gets Acquired By Fitbit - Ends Production and Ceases Support Of Its Existing Lineup of Smartwatches (getpebble.com)
Reader phorm writes: In a notice to Kickstarter backers, pebble has stated that -- following the acquisition by Fitbit (official now) -- they will no longer promote, manufacture, or sell devices. Further, while existing functionality may continue, it is likely to be degraded and warranty support will no longer be provided. This includes any recently shipped Pebble models. For those that were eagerly awaiting shipment of Pebble Time 2 and other newer devices, those devices will not ship at all. Pebble has indicated refunds will be made within 4-8 weeks. Those expecting their money may not want to hold their breath, however, because a contradictory statement made by to backers by email says that refunds will be made via Kickstarter by March 2017.Fitbit said it is only purchasing software assets from Pebble.
That source is in financial trouble and unable to produce the displays Pebble depends on.
Therefore Pebble has no products to sell and thus no cash flow.
Therefore Pebble has had to wind down operations and pay off creditors.
Pebble's IP has some value to Fitbit and hiring a few of Pebble's suddenly-available engineers is a no-brainer but Fitbit has no interest in the Pebble company or it's products.
The lesson is to be very leery of DEPENDING on a single source supplier. Pebble was a healthy going concern until they could no longer get their needed displays. Then it went off the rails.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
They can pry my pebble watch off my cold, dead, wrist.... Huge loss... at least the developer forum says that the cloud stuff will continue to run and they are planning to spin it off to the user community to run in the future.
2) This is a dick move by FitBit, since they're basically going out of their way to make sure they're not spending a penny on any Pebble customers.
3) If, from today onward, you ever buy a FitBit product - you're telling FitBit "I'm okay with the way you treated Pebble's existing customers".
Ridiculous.
Why should they? Those people are Pebble's customers, not Fitbits. Fitbit has zero connection to those people. They never sold them a product.
Look at it this way. If Fitbit had bought the office chairs from Pebble's offices, would you feel the same way? It's no different. They aren't taking over Pebble's products, or continuing them in any way. As for the employees, they are only interviewing some of Pebble's old, now unemployed workers. Those people have no obligation to Fitbit, and ANY company can interview those same employees if they can attract them.
Word of mouth is the only power we have; but, being tech-oriented folks, the people around us tend to look to us for advice in areas like this.
With your rational, I hope not.