Digital Drive

Exactly...

73.242.169.18

Ivan303

A

In Reply to: RE: Independent subsidiary? posted by AbeCollins on November 28, 2023 at 22:00:39

Ruin it? To what end?

ROON only has value (to anyone) if it is universally accepted and supported by ALL (or most) of the players in audio world.

ROON Ready doesn't work unless all of Harman's competitors are 'Ready'.

Integration of the Roon business too closely to Harman might be seen as a threat to others so that can't be allowed to happen or it devalues Harman's investment.

Simple as that.

First they came for the dumb-asses
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a dumb-ass

Follow Ups:

It will be interest to watch what happens - mlsstl 06:40:44 11/29/23 (1)
Harman bought Roon because they think they can make money with it. However, there are different ways that things can play out:
- Leave Roon to "do their own thing" and continue as-is
- Use the larger financial resources of Harman to dramatically improve things
- Do a classic acquisition move -- cut expenses to improve profit at the risk of stalling development and poorer customer service
- Make changes that leave prior lifetime subscribers behind (i.e., add new features that require annual payment, etc.)
- Decide to go more mass market and make changes that dramatically expand the customer base but leaves the original clients frustrated
That's hardly a complete list, plus various combinations of those options may happen, so as noted in the subject line, it will be interesting to watch what happens. Get your popcorn ready.

Edits: 11/29/23
- RE: It will be interest to watch what happens - AbeCollins 07:32:56 11/29/23 (0)
  As a somewhat early adopter of Roon this bullet point in your post caught my eye:
  - Make changes that leave prior lifetime subscribers behind (i.e., add features that require annual payment, etc.)
  That could happen. We'll have to see.
  In the very early days of Roon you could outright buy a lifetime license for a one-time price of $499. Instead, I chose to subscribe for almost two years thinking this new company could fold and disappear at any moment. Just the opposite happened. Roon continued to rapidly develop their product with bug fixes and new features gaining momentum in the audiophile community with end-users, manufacturers, and dealers. I then made the decision to outright buy a lifetime license. So I paid the one-time $499.
  Fast forward a couple years and Roon announced a price hike to $699. They openly stated that their goal was to increase the number of subscription customers as the sale of lifetime Roon licenses would not be a sustainable business model to support ongoing rapid development and new features. That makes sense as nearly every viable software company on the planet has moved to a subscription based business model.
  There was another more recent price hike announced in 2022 and implemented in 2023. You can still buy a lifetime Roon license for $829 or you can subscribe for:
  � $12.49/month, billed annually
  � $14.99/month, billed monthly
  � Lifetime billing for $829.99, one-time.
  - Roon pricing (Open in New Window)
  Edits: 11/29/23 11/29/23

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