5 ms·

Why on earth would Oculus sell at all, least of all to Facebook? What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core com

by neotek 13y ago

Why on earth would Oculus sell at all, least of all to Facebook? What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency? People in the /r/oculus reddit are already expressing strong feelings of betrayal - eighty comments in under ten minutes, none positive. What a bizarre move.

pdq 13y ago
Agreed it's bizarre from Facebook's perspective. But completely logical from Oculus' perspective -- if someone offers you $2B to cash out before you've even launched, you'd be silly to say no.
- jmathai 13y ago
  I can't say I'm the type of founder to say no but I'm glad they exist. They're the ones who disrupt entire industries.
- reportingsjr 13y ago
  Does it really always have to be about money? This is just stupid.
  - Mz 13y ago
    Try having none for a while. It's hard to stand by "principles" when you aren't eating. A lot of people are very, very afraid of stuff like that, even if they have not suffered in a long time or never really, truly suffered but maybe their parents grew up hungry and instilled in them terror of doing without. I mean, some folks stand by their principles. But, seriously, it's not easy.
    - neotek 13y ago
      Oculus wasn't exactly starving for cash, and even if they were investors would have beaten each other to death for a chance to pour some cash into it.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Now that is the mentality that's killing companies.
  - krick 13y ago
    Well, this is the mentality that's allowing somebody have 2B in cash now…
  - a1a 13y ago
    Say that to Elon Musk. Imagine the inventors using this money in the same way Musk did. If they do (or at least try) I'd say humanity comes out on top - even though this killed our dream of VR in the near future.
    - crassus 13y ago
      How many Elon Musks are there? Most billionaires seem to spend their money on fancy yachts and high-profile charity projects that make them look superior to their peers. Few are deploying their resources to push the technological envelope.
      - dustyleary 13y ago
        Although I don't agree with you about their motives (wrt just trying to look superior to their peers), I won't argue that point. But even if you think their motives behind the charity are selfish, don't discount the effects. How many Einsteins, von Neumans, Ramanujans, or Musks (pick your genius of choice, really) are stillborn in the developing world because of malaria or HIV? How many never achieve their potential because of malnutrition or polio? If the Gates Foundation eradicates malaria and polio, and we get a few more world-changing geniuses out of it, they'll have done much more to push the technological envelope than any other endeavor.
        MrScruff 13y ago
        I'm not going to argue that eradicating malaria is a bad thing, but it's inaccurate to infer that the only thing preventing the worlds extreme poor from being leaders of industry is good health.
objclxt 13y ago
> What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency? I would imagine Facebook feels under pressure to build up a core hardware engineering team. It's pretty clear that embedded and wearable computing is going to be a huge industry at some point in the future, and Facebook is going to need to get into that industry unless it wants to be indebted to and reliant upon hardware manufacturers. So really, this acquisition makes sense for the same kind of reasons Google acquiring Nest makes sense - neither company has strong expertise or experience in consumer electronics hardware, and they need it going forward.
- bhtru 13y ago
  After the shock from this announcement I'm starting to drum up how and what Facebook are going to be doing with VR. Secondlife-esque world hub for all your freemium games; experience a "friend's life" through interactive media generated based on user data; a step above video-conferences by use of VR - challenging Skype, Google Hangout, et al., with a killer feature? I think this may for the best for the future of VR. We know the gaming industry will use VR at some point and we know how they'll use it for the most part. It's a discussion well established in our popular culture. The potential innovation of VR as a medium would more likely happen with a company like Facebook rather than one like Valve.
kayoone 13y ago
Google is also investing heavily into stuff thats far from their core competency, like robots and self driving cars. I just hope FB don't mess with it too much in the next few years.
- neotek 13y ago
  Maybe this is my personal bias showing, but surely Google is more of a general technology company than Facebook could hope to be. Google has a long-term, sustainable business that continually makes huge strides in new markets - from revolutionising search, to speeding up the evolution of the internet through projects like Chrome, smashing up the smartphone market with Android, and so on. Facebook on the other hand is a pretty good social network that seems to have hit its peak and is difficult to monetise, where the only strides that are taken appear to be buying companies with overlapping userbases in order to cling on to relevance. Okay, that's definitely my personal bias showing.
  - jamesie 13y ago
    Google has been around for 6 years more than Facebook. Facebook will become more of a general technology company. Expect more acquisitions like this. It only makes sense to diversify.
  - flylib 13y ago
    Facebook has a lot of talent and can easily compete with Google on new technology sectors
  - lmm 13y ago
    The only part of Google that's ever made money is their ads. Chrome and Android are purely defensive.
Crito 13y ago
"Facebook is the biggest name in social media." -> "Google, another tech powerhouse, is trying to push their social media offerings." -> "Google has 3 things that Facebook does not: Email, Youtube, and Glass." -> "Facebook is comfortable with the first two, since they have been there for years, but Glass is threatening to them." -> "Facebook needs their own 'Glass', in case Glass pans out." My prediction: Glass will not pan out for Google, and Oculus Rift with languish with Facebook as a result. Facebook may put out some half-hearted "Use a Rift to view your friends 3d panoramas of their vacation" nonsense that nobody will care about, and the industry will be put off VR for another half-decade at least.
- cweiss 13y ago
  This speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the two products. Oculus Rift is about bringing hyper-immersive 3D to the wearer, Google Glass is about moving the Google interface to the eyeball. It's like comparing a 4k TV to a Chromebook. Both are outstanding products, but there's little actual value-proposition overlap. I would hate to think that the Facebook board was equally ignorant of the differences and didn't just buy into "Google has a thing for the face, we need a thing for the face! We're Facebook after all!" I'm less worried about folks being turned off of VR - That Oculus has such great traction means that other big tech manufacturers won't be too far behind emulating their display technology and coming out with competing products at lower pricing than the VR. At least one of them will actually be decent enough to sell well.
  - Crito 13y ago
    I completely understand the difference between the two products. I've used both, though own neither. They are two very different products but I maintain that they represent two different approaches to the same problem, pushing us past our current understanding of what I/O devices are. Google Glass is a push into the unknown, Facebook may not agree that it is in the right approach, but you are kidding yourself if they aren't looking at Google and wondering why they are not pushing I/O bounds as well. They're both looking for "the next smartphone", trying to determine what that will be. The industry has been turned off of VR in the past by botched executions, and I am afraid it can happen again.
baq 13y ago
> What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency? yeah, what's next? zuck buying spacex so you can visit friends on the moon?
Scene_Cast2 13y ago
I'm assuming that Facebook, given its size, has at least some leverage over the W3 standards committee. Imagine VR integration inside the browser (at least for positional tracking and latency mitigation).
anjc 13y ago
Maybe they see the rift as being a disruptor of the gaming industry, which is increasingly social (which has been very profitable for Facebook), and...oh I don't know. It's confusing. I don't know how I feel about it, from a personal standpoint, and I don't understand it from a business perspective. Oculus don't really have an idea of how big/small the market is for the product yet, even. Bah. I still want a DK2, and I still love what Oculus have done for VR.

by neotek 13y ago

pdq 13y ago

Agreed it's bizarre from Facebook's perspective. But completely logical from Oculus' perspective -- if someone offers you $2B to cash out before you've even launched, you'd be silly to say no.

jmathai 13y ago
I can't say I'm the type of founder to say no but I'm glad they exist. They're the ones who disrupt entire industries.
reportingsjr 13y ago
Does it really always have to be about money? This is just stupid.
- Mz 13y ago
  Try having none for a while. It's hard to stand by "principles" when you aren't eating. A lot of people are very, very afraid of stuff like that, even if they have not suffered in a long time or never really, truly suffered but maybe their parents grew up hungry and instilled in them terror of doing without. I mean, some folks stand by their principles. But, seriously, it's not easy.
  - neotek 13y ago
    Oculus wasn't exactly starving for cash, and even if they were investors would have beaten each other to death for a chance to pour some cash into it.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
devindotcom 13y ago
Now that is the mentality that's killing companies.
- krick 13y ago
  Well, this is the mentality that's allowing somebody have 2B in cash now…
- a1a 13y ago
  Say that to Elon Musk. Imagine the inventors using this money in the same way Musk did. If they do (or at least try) I'd say humanity comes out on top - even though this killed our dream of VR in the near future.
  - crassus 13y ago
    How many Elon Musks are there? Most billionaires seem to spend their money on fancy yachts and high-profile charity projects that make them look superior to their peers. Few are deploying their resources to push the technological envelope.
    - dustyleary 13y ago
      Although I don't agree with you about their motives (wrt just trying to look superior to their peers), I won't argue that point. But even if you think their motives behind the charity are selfish, don't discount the effects. How many Einsteins, von Neumans, Ramanujans, or Musks (pick your genius of choice, really) are stillborn in the developing world because of malaria or HIV? How many never achieve their potential because of malnutrition or polio? If the Gates Foundation eradicates malaria and polio, and we get a few more world-changing geniuses out of it, they'll have done much more to push the technological envelope than any other endeavor.
      - MrScruff 13y ago
        I'm not going to argue that eradicating malaria is a bad thing, but it's inaccurate to infer that the only thing preventing the worlds extreme poor from being leaders of industry is good health.

objclxt 13y ago

> What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency? I would imagine Facebook feels under pressure to build up a core hardware engineering team. It's pretty clear that embedded and wearable computing is going to be a huge industry at some point in the future, and Facebook is going to need to get into that industry unless it wants to be indebted to and reliant upon hardware manufacturers. So really, this acquisition makes sense for the same kind of reasons Google acquiring Nest makes sense - neither company has strong expertise or experience in consumer electronics hardware, and they need it going forward.

bhtru 13y ago
After the shock from this announcement I'm starting to drum up how and what Facebook are going to be doing with VR. Secondlife-esque world hub for all your freemium games; experience a "friend's life" through interactive media generated based on user data; a step above video-conferences by use of VR - challenging Skype, Google Hangout, et al., with a killer feature? I think this may for the best for the future of VR. We know the gaming industry will use VR at some point and we know how they'll use it for the most part. It's a discussion well established in our popular culture. The potential innovation of VR as a medium would more likely happen with a company like Facebook rather than one like Valve.

kayoone 13y ago

Google is also investing heavily into stuff thats far from their core competency, like robots and self driving cars. I just hope FB don't mess with it too much in the next few years.

neotek 13y ago
Maybe this is my personal bias showing, but surely Google is more of a general technology company than Facebook could hope to be. Google has a long-term, sustainable business that continually makes huge strides in new markets - from revolutionising search, to speeding up the evolution of the internet through projects like Chrome, smashing up the smartphone market with Android, and so on. Facebook on the other hand is a pretty good social network that seems to have hit its peak and is difficult to monetise, where the only strides that are taken appear to be buying companies with overlapping userbases in order to cling on to relevance. Okay, that's definitely my personal bias showing.
- jamesie 13y ago
  Google has been around for 6 years more than Facebook. Facebook will become more of a general technology company. Expect more acquisitions like this. It only makes sense to diversify.
- flylib 13y ago
  Facebook has a lot of talent and can easily compete with Google on new technology sectors
- lmm 13y ago
  The only part of Google that's ever made money is their ads. Chrome and Android are purely defensive.

Crito 13y ago

"Facebook is the biggest name in social media." -> "Google, another tech powerhouse, is trying to push their social media offerings." -> "Google has 3 things that Facebook does not: Email, Youtube, and Glass." -> "Facebook is comfortable with the first two, since they have been there for years, but Glass is threatening to them." -> "Facebook needs their own 'Glass', in case Glass pans out." My prediction: Glass will not pan out for Google, and Oculus Rift with languish with Facebook as a result. Facebook may put out some half-hearted "Use a Rift to view your friends 3d panoramas of their vacation" nonsense that nobody will care about, and the industry will be put off VR for another half-decade at least.

cweiss 13y ago
This speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the two products. Oculus Rift is about bringing hyper-immersive 3D to the wearer, Google Glass is about moving the Google interface to the eyeball. It's like comparing a 4k TV to a Chromebook. Both are outstanding products, but there's little actual value-proposition overlap. I would hate to think that the Facebook board was equally ignorant of the differences and didn't just buy into "Google has a thing for the face, we need a thing for the face! We're Facebook after all!" I'm less worried about folks being turned off of VR - That Oculus has such great traction means that other big tech manufacturers won't be too far behind emulating their display technology and coming out with competing products at lower pricing than the VR. At least one of them will actually be decent enough to sell well.
- Crito 13y ago
  I completely understand the difference between the two products. I've used both, though own neither. They are two very different products but I maintain that they represent two different approaches to the same problem, pushing us past our current understanding of what I/O devices are. Google Glass is a push into the unknown, Facebook may not agree that it is in the right approach, but you are kidding yourself if they aren't looking at Google and wondering why they are not pushing I/O bounds as well. They're both looking for "the next smartphone", trying to determine what that will be. The industry has been turned off of VR in the past by botched executions, and I am afraid it can happen again.

baq 13y ago

> What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency? yeah, what's next? zuck buying spacex so you can visit friends on the moon?

Scene_Cast2 13y ago

I'm assuming that Facebook, given its size, has at least some leverage over the W3 standards committee. Imagine VR integration inside the browser (at least for positional tracking and latency mitigation).

anjc 13y ago

Maybe they see the rift as being a disruptor of the gaming industry, which is increasingly social (which has been very profitable for Facebook), and...oh I don't know. It's confusing. I don't know how I feel about it, from a personal standpoint, and I don't understand it from a business perspective. Oculus don't really have an idea of how big/small the market is for the product yet, even. Bah. I still want a DK2, and I still love what Oculus have done for VR.