Boxee, the former makers of the Boxee Box and more recently the Boxee Cloud DVR, has been acquired by Samsung. It later shifted to selling a set-top box that runs its software. The 30 million buyout just the latest chapter in the two companies struggle. Software for watching any format of digital video. For a few years now, Boxee has been a hot start-up at the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the biggest technology trade shows in the world. Earlier this year, it said that the majority of sets it sells would be smart TVs.īut, similar to Samsung’s smartphone software, its smart TV software has often been criticized as being impractical and difficult to use. Samsung Electronics confirmed on Wednesday that it had acquired assets and talent from Boxee, a video start-up. Samsung has made a hard push into Internet-connected televisions, called smart TVs. “This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices.” “Samsung has acquired key talent and assets from Boxee,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. In a statement, a Samsung spokeswoman wouldĬonfirm only that Samsung had acquired some employees and assets of Boxee but did not disclose how much it had paid. The acquisition should help Samsung improve its software for its Internet-connected televisions.Īn earlier report by The Marker, an Israeli Web site, said that Samsung purchased the start-up for $30 million. I would say they kept them running long past any moral obligation to do so.Samsung Electronics confirmed on Wednesday that it had acquired assets and talent from Boxee, a video start-up. For them, there's virtually no benefit to spending that money other than an unprofitable loyalty to their Boxee customers. I can't really blame D-Link for shuttering the servers. It was a well-made, well-engineered, beautiful piece of hardware. The logo at the front with the changing LED lights was not cheap, either. The remote was expensive with the double-sided keys. The units were not cheap to make, either. Which is too bad, because the user interface work that Boxee did was excellent.įWIW, I think D-Link Taiwan did a very good job of engineering the Boxee Box. They took what they could use and incorporated it, and jettisoned the rest. I think Samsung mismanaged the takeover and probably gutted all the Boxee software for their SmartTV software. I doubt the Israeli-run Boxee company screwed Samsung. I thought Samsung bought EVERYTHING, including the rights to run the Boxee servers, when they purchased Boxee the company. The PX team initially got significant resources from Samsung, and was able to grow its headcount. So D-Link, not Samsung, was still hosting the login servers? Thanks for correcting me. Samsung acquired Boxee’s assets and team two years ago after the startup had run out of money. The servers cost them $2,400 a year to pay for. My wife worked at D-Link USA for 18 years, we've been trough this over and over again with D-Link brass to keep the servers going, but the company is Taiwanese and that means BE CHEAP. They pinch a nickel so hard the Bison is knocked off. Samsung bought Boxee yesterday for roughly 30 million. The servers cost them $2,400 a year to pay for. The 30 million buyout just the latest chapter in the two companies' struggle. My wife worked at D-Link USA for 18 years, we've been trough this over and over again with D-Link brass to keep the servers going, but the company is Taiwanese and that means BE CHEAP. Extending its reach in the booming online video market, Samsung Electronics has struck a deal to acquire streaming media startup and cable pest Boxee. Boxee never made it in any form to a Samsung TV or device. Samsung bought the Israeli run Boxee, but did nothing with it, there were NO servers involved and I suspect that they quickly realized that that Israeli that ran Boxee had screwed Samsung too, just like he screwed all of us owners. Taiwan must have finally decided to stop that two weeks ago. D-Link paid for the Boxee Box servers for years, and killed off the sharing, access to new apps, etc., BUT kept the Login (anonymous) running internally now in Taiwan instead of a US based server. D-Link was left holding the bag with Boxee Box OS which looked like "Boxee", but was a firmware INSTALLED on a ROM in the Boxee Box. There is a very big difference between Boxee Box and Boxee.
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