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Android Creator Puts Essential Up For Sale, Cancels Next Phone (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg reports that Andy Rubin's Essential Products business is considering selling itself and has canceled development of a new smartphone. The news comes several months after numerous reports suggested that the Essential Phone's sales were tepid. From the report: The startup has hired Credit Suisse Group AG to advise on a potential sale and has received interest from at least one suitor, the people said. Essential is now actively shopping itself to potential suitors, one of the people said. The startup, part of Rubin's incubator Playground Global, has raised about $300 million from several investors, including Amazon, Tencent, and Redpoint Ventures. It was valued at $900 million to $1 billion about a year ago, according to an analysis by Equidate, which runs a market for private company stock.
The startup has spent more than $100 million on developing its first products, about a third of the money it raised to build the company, the people said. Current discussions are focused on a sale of the entire company, including its patent portfolio, hardware products like the original smartphone, an upcoming smart home device and a camera attachment for the phone. Essential's engineering talent, which includes those hired from Apple and Alphabet's Google, would likely be part of a deal. The company hasn't yet made a final decision on a sale, the people said.
The startup has spent more than $100 million on developing its first products, about a third of the money it raised to build the company, the people said. Current discussions are focused on a sale of the entire company, including its patent portfolio, hardware products like the original smartphone, an upcoming smart home device and a camera attachment for the phone. Essential's engineering talent, which includes those hired from Apple and Alphabet's Google, would likely be part of a deal. The company hasn't yet made a final decision on a sale, the people said.
Non of the in-demand talents ask for termination clause incase of a buyout? Not much of a talent if they were stupid enough to not ask. I always ask for things over standard contracts. More paid time off, better travel reimbursements, etc.
that's racist
Sorry, I was interested until they decided on doing an exclusive with Sprint for the phone then I lost 100% interest in it. Rubin was touting that he cared about consumers and that is what inspired him to go back and make a phone free from all of the bloat and then he goes off and does an exclusive. I was also not happy about the missing 3.5mm jack as well.
Sorry Rubin, you sold out and the sharks smelled your blood in the water.
You may have started good but you ended bad. Good riddance in my opinion!
i seen reviews of that phone on youtube and thought they were decent phones, with a nice clean android install without third party bloatware that can not be uninstalled (are you listening samsung) i almost bought one but BestBuy was out of stock so i settled for another Samsung phone which is a nice phone but some things annoy me like not being able to completely uninstall facebook, (only disable it)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The era of smartphone growth when you could build a new significant player in the smartphone business are over - no matter how good or different you think your device is. There are only a few places left to make profit selling phones:
Of course there are other phone makers. A few will make high margins on specialty devices aimed at niche markets (security, ultra rugged). A few will do very good volumes, especially those backed by the Chinese government and/or serving the ultra low cost Indian market. But nobody but Apple or Samsung will do both, and the remainder are basically making manufacturer margins (5% or less profit) rather than technology company margins (20-40% profit). Everyone else, please don't bother.
"95% of all Slashdot
Had the proprietor acted in time, and purchased a sufficiently secure phone (instead of all those retentive burner phones), Essential Consultants LLC might still be New York's very own diplomatic Peshawar.
[*] Democrats and principled liberals would know it best as Peshtar (Peshawar + Ishtar).
Unfortunately, rock trolls squish you into culinary essence without so much as a howdy-do, or a quick inquiry into your Jahm Dough (who know rock trolls had a Boston-cream accent?). Besides, even if you try to squeak out "essential" you'll never get past the "ts" without the highly suggestible troll going "good idea" and ka-bam, one flat kettle of marrow-crux-lifeblood pate.
Despite their legendary suggestibility, rock trolls do tend to pass the marshmallow test, and are thus prone to stocking root cellars with many excellent preserves.
Cohen's essence—which is simply too delicious for his own good—could be facing thirty years in the regularly-ventilated fruit-leather infirmary, depending on how he jockeys the rest of his already broken hand.
Their phone itself isn't particularly interesting. There's nothing about it that distinguishes it from every other phone out there. Maybe if they did something like put back features that most/all of the other vendors have deleted, this wouldn't have happened. LineageOS is there for people who want a pure Android without crapware. What we need is hardware without crapware AND WITH the good stuff that is usually missing these days (IR blaster, removable battery, SD card slot, non-curves screen, a bezel without the stupid notch, 3.5mm audio jack). Also, how about designing phones with the expectation of putting them into a case of some sort?
...thought they'd have some kind of "special position".
So one of the guys who started "Android" is involved... that's software, not hardware.
Android itself is built atop Linux, i.e. not something he spun out all on his own.
And Android's success came more from Google's adoption and pushing it out, than "Android" per se.
So what exactly did this guy bring to the table?
Why should something he did, hardware-wise, be any better than what actual hardware specialists come up with?
Summary: Andy Rubin might do a thing.
#DeleteChrome
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. *takes deep breath* hahahahahahaha!!!
So what this is saying is that... *puts on sunglasses* Essential Products wasn’t that essential to the market?
It was valued at $900 million to $1 billion about a year ago, according to an analysis by Equidate, which runs a market for private company stock.
Thus proving that these valuations are essentially made up and have no rational basis.
An expensive device without such basics as a headphone jack, with "exclusivity" sold as a fucking advantage, and with plenty of cheaper, more capable, alternatives. I remain surprised the "high end" Android phones sell at all, given it seems that the more expensive they are, the fewer key features are included and the more fragile the phone (iPhones? Yes, because iPhone buyers tend to already be locked into the iOS ecosystem, but Android users have alternatives.)
It'd be nice to think this is the last time someone will come out with a new company based upon the stunningly original business model of "Copy every bad decision Apple has made, but compete in the Android ecosystem, and BTW let's hype exclusivity because that's what customers really want, they must do, because, uh, what?", but let's be honest, there's someone out there right now convinced that he'd outsell Samsung if only he can find a way to engineer a cellphone that's as thin as a sheet of paper and has a battery life of five minutes.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Most people don't care how crappy their music sounds.
The problem with Essential phone was not it did not include this or that feature. One can't break into a market with so many established global brand names, and then charge the Apple or Samsung prices for your product.
Try to tell your friend or a relative from among those who don't read tech news every day why don't you check out the Essential Phone? "Essential what?!" will be their first reply. The second question will be why is it so bloody expensive. Let's go back to the poor branding of this device. When somebody offers me to acquire an essential car, home, or other device, I will assume that I am getting the low-end low-cost "essential" features only (e.g. makes calls...).
Even if they got the brand name right, you're not going to convince an average consumer that this is better than Apple, Samsung or LG. The correct strategy of the Essential phone would be to repeat the success of the chinese Oneplus. Recall the Original Oneplus One from 2014. It cost 300USD (350 for the 64GB model) while being an honest phone and having the specs of a typical flagship phone. It was globally successful. Then they continued building on this success with the subsequent equally high end, but still value priced, models like 2 and 3. One can argue that the current 5 and 6 are no longer as value priced (the brand new 6 starts at 525USD), but in the past years the brand has built a good reputation among consumers and apparently can afford to charge higher prices for its products.
What's important is that the founders got rich from the investors' money.
Frankly they would have been better off following the OnePlus model of offering a mostly-featured phone with a good screen at a price point that stood out compared to high end offerings.
Essential could have brought the world a unique, small, thick, tough, powerful phone. Something different.
But instead he thought we needed YET ANOTHER thin, fragile phablet.
Goodbye.
Kickstarter funding completed awhile back on a slashdotter-spec'd phone: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Nice phone, but nothing really to set it apart, IMHO.
Definitely not cheap. No headphone jack.
USB-C may be "future proof" but it sure ain't past proof ... only the included cable can be used, not the bazillion USB cables we already have.
Are they changing the company name to Inessential Products now?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.