Home-Automation Startup R2 Studios in Acquisition Talks
A secretive startup founded by the man who popularized the Slingbox has been in talks with companies considering buying it, people close to the company say, with Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Apple Inc. cited as participants.
Context & Ripple Effects
Blake Krikorian has run this play before: he built Slingbox maker Sling Media into a company EchoStar bought for roughly $380 million in 2007, after products like the SlingCatcher extended the brand beyond the original place-shifting box. Microsoft even tried to clone the category that year with LiveStation, pitched as a Slingbox without the box.
Now the same founder is back with a secretive home-automation startup, and the Wall Street Journal reports talks with Microsoft, Google and Apple — a rumor set picked up within a day by GigaOM, The Verge, AllThingsD, MacRumors, 9to5Mac and 9to5Google alike, which itself signals how contested all three camps see this territory to be.
First-order effects
- Whichever of Microsoft, Google or Apple closes a deal gets a founding team with a proven consumer hardware-and-software track record plus a head start in home automation; the other two are left scouting the same thin pool of experienced talent.
- Until a deal lands, R2 Studios' product roadmap stays frozen behind acquisition secrecy, since any public launch would reset its negotiating position.
Second-order effects
- A sale would push the two losing bidders toward rival home-automation startups or internal builds, accelerating consolidation of a market still dominated by hobbyist-grade gear.
- EchoStar's Sling Media operation loses its most visible alumnus to a direct competitor of its platform partners, tightening the link between place-shifting TV and whoever controls the connected home.
Third-order effects
- If all three suitors were serious, home automation is being treated not as a gadget niche but as an extension of the mobile-platform war, absorbed through capability acquisitions rather than grown organically.
- The pattern repeats the Sling Media playbook at larger scale: specialist founders with shipped consumer products become scarce assets that platform giants pay up for rather than compete against.
The trend: Consumer platform giants are increasingly sourcing their connected-home strategies by absorbing proven specialist founders, turning home automation into the next front of the Microsoft-Google-Apple ecosystem contest.