

Boxee Acquired By Samsung For Around $30M - changdizzle
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/03/streaming-entertainment-startup-boxee-acquired-by-samsung-for-around-30m/

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antr
An exit break-even for investors (money-losing if the funds' cost of capital
are considered) and no real return for founders/team.

The hardware-media play is tough.

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mattzito
"no real return" might be a strong statement to make when you take into
account retention packages and bonuses that Samsung probably put together.

Sure, none of them are probably retiring, but if they can stick around at
Samsung for a while they can probably do very well for themselves.

~~~
wensing
They did not get 'venture returns.'

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mike-cardwell
Boxee is a nice app. As long as you don't mind giving them a list of everthing
you watch and when you watch it:

[https://grepular.com/Boxee_TV_Helps_Its_Self_To_Your_Viewing...](https://grepular.com/Boxee_TV_Helps_Its_Self_To_Your_Viewing_Habits)

Use XBMC. It's just as good but doesn't have all the unnescessary social crap.

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antidaily
I use Plex. It's incredible.

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Kiro
Isn't that a completely different thing?

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untog
All three are forks of XBMC, to varying degrees.

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fish2000
I work in the same building as Boxee’s New York HQ, four floors down – now I
know why I’ve been seeing such a marked uptick in the amount of Boxee
employees out on the sidewalk chatting excitedly, in like the past two weeks…
to my upstairs neighbors, I say congrats!

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trustfundbaby
$30 Million acquisition on $26.5 Million in funding is probably not something
they'll feel great to be congratulated about.

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fish2000
Ha, I’ll just empathetically wince at them instead in passing.

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kleinsch
Curious to see why the financial numbers don't look so great for Boxee, but if
this is true, I think it's a super smart move for Samsung. They're trying to
push smart TVs in the living room, but those haven't taken off yet. Grabbing a
company that's making some of the best living room hardware makes a lot of
sense.

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mikeryan
_Grabbing a company that 's making some of the best living room hardware makes
a lot of sense._

Have you _used_ a V2 Boxee box? Its honestly almost unusable and underpowered
from both a software and hardware perspective, even the remote feels cheap.
Their D-Link V1 box was a significantly better but they didn't _make_ it, it
cost twice as much as a Roku and was only a hundred bucks less then an Xbox
which they couldn't compete with. So they tried to take on Roku on the low end
and flubbed it badly.

The one thing boxee has always done better then anyone else is their XBMC
overlay for playing back local (or network attached) media. This is also where
Samsung lacks, if anything this should be where Boxee's talent can play a
part.

~~~
mickeyp
I love my little Boxee v1 box. I may be a developer and I may love technology,
but I utterly despise anything remotely related to hi-fi, and I want my stuff
as plug-and-play as possible. My supposed "SmartTV" from Samsung sucked (aside
from the iPlayer integration, which worked really well) -- but the boxee v1
worked a treat. Plug. Scan. Play.

The QWERTY remote was icing on the cake, to be honest.

Glad to see Samsung taking over; maybe now Netflix will work in the UK on it.

~~~
GaveUp
I wish I could say I had the same experience with the box. The firmwares were
consistently buggy and never quite worked well.

By far the two most frustrating aspects being the forced updates (which were
often more buggy or broke features) and the lockups while in sleep. There was
nothing more annoying than having to get up and hard reboot the thing every
time I wanted to watch something.

Once the Pi and raspbmc became a viable alternative I quickly replaced my
boxee boxes because, while not bug free by any means, they're much closer to
"just working" than the boxee box ever was.

The one good thing I can say about the boxee box, though, is that its remote
was a real treat. That thing worked like a charm.

~~~
tracker1
Agreed, and for the price, really hoping that XBMC's stability issues on the
Ouya get worked out.

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yangtheman
I am not an insider, but had worked at Samsung HQ several years ago. Knowing
their tendency to look for lowest price in anything and committee-based
consensus building, I am sure it took them a while and hard bargain to reach
$30M.

IMHO, such practice only allows them room to acquire non-prime (past-prime)
companies. And their culture is largely not compatible with startups in the
US. I would be interested to see what happens to Boxee team in 6-months to
year down the road.

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icn2
Seems not a so awesome exit with Launch Date: 2004 and Funding of $26.5M

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josh2600
It isn't a very good exit. Boxee always painted themselves into a corner.
They're the streaming device that could never achieve enough scale to gather
content relationships.

It was a great device, but plagued by the anathema that is content
partnerships with modern media companies. No matter what, if you have to
provide consumer content, you're gonna get fucked. Plain and simple.

~~~
JonFish85
This is why I fully expect an advance in streaming media to come from a
business with another form of revenue (Apple, Google...).

The content companies are intent on smothering any startup with great ideas,
because it's a huge threat to their current business model. Like Apple did
with iTunes, it's going to take a great idea _and_ a company with a serious
war chest to force progress along. Good technology alone is just going to meet
this same end, time and time again (in my opinion): Comcast, Verizon, etc.
have too much of an incentive to keep things the way they are now, and enough
money to keep startups from reaching critical mass.

Edited to add: In a lot of ways, Microsoft might be the first to really break
the barrier with the XBox One. They have loads of cash, an audience that the
content creators / content delivery companies need and the technology to get
it there.

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nhangen
Smart pickup by Samsung, who has struggled to build software matching the
quality of their hardware. Smart TV's just aren't that smart. As Samsung is my
electronics brand of choice, I'm hoping this results in a better user
experience out of the box.

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slacka
On my 47" I've used many 10' UIs, XBMC, PS3, x-box, Apple TV, etc. Boxee and
X-bar(PS3) are my favorite. Don't know if XBMC or Boxee designers should take
the credit, but if Samsung is getting the talent responsible, 30M is a steal.

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mickeyr
"Streaming Entertainment Startup Boxee Acquired By Samsung For Around $30M"

So after 9 years of business they are still considered a startup? At what
point do you stop being a start up?

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tg3
After you get big or die or get acquired.

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eps
Woah, that's low.

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Duhck
Awesome for Boxee, its a great product (actually the valuation seems kinda low
to me)

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eekfuh
I normally would agree with your low valuation sentiments, but the competition
is really fierce (Roku, AppleTV, even Ouya) and I haven't seen more than one
Boxee out in the wild.

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modoc
I've got three in my house. Amazing devices imho.

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Terretta
I keep expecting LG to acquire Plex but maybe Plex has OEM agnostic plans.

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bjeanes
I really hope LG doesn't acquire Plex. Plex's polyglot approach to platforms
is too valuable to me...

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Terretta
I strongly agree with you.

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faramarz
Seems like an awesome buy for Samsung, at a bargain too!

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matdrewin
I wonder where Samsung is going with this...

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dakimov
The schoolboys from this site are laughing at their faces for such a miserable
exit.

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jeffehobbs
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

