The deal will give the e-retail behemoth even more access to our homes
This morning, Amazon and iRobot announced “a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire iRobot” for US $1.7 billion. The announcement was a surprise, to put it mildly, and we’ve barely had a chance to digest the news. But taking a look at what’s already known can still yield initial (if incomplete) answers as to why Amazon and iRobot want to team up—and whether the merger seems like a good idea.
The press release, like most press releases about acquisitions of this nature, doesn’t include much in the way of detail. But here are some quotes:
There’s not much to go on here, and iRobot has already referred us to Amazon PR, which, to be honest, feels like a bit of a punch in the gut. I love (loved?) so many things about iRobot—their quirky early history working on weird DARPA projects and even weirder toys, everything they accomplished with the PackBot (and also this), and most of all, the fact that they’ve made a successful company building useful and affordable robots for the home, which is just… It’s so hard to do that I don’t even know where to start. And nobody knows what’s going to happen to iRobot going forward. I’m sure iRobot and Amazon have all kinds of plans and promises and whatnot, but still—I’m now nervous about iRobot’s future.
Why this is a good move for Amazon is clear, but what exactly is in it for iRobot?
It seems fairly obvious why Amazon wanted to get its hands on iRobot.
