The hardware boss at Amazon, Dave Limp, is at CES and doing some interviews with some publications, and of course the big question that came up was the accusations that Sonos threw at the company yesterday.
Sonos announced it was suing Google on Tuesday, for stealing its multiroom audio technology that is in its speakers. Sonos also accused Amazon of also stealing this technology, but thought it smart not to go after two tech giants at the same time.
Limp had to know going into CES today that this would be a big topic of conversation. And he was ready.
Amazon VP takes a friendly stance when talking about Sonos
The response that Limp gave to The Verge today in its interview with him, was pretty much a cookie-cutter public relations spiel. That’s not a surprise though. Limp, and Amazon does not want to damage its partnership with Sonos by talking bad about them. And due to the lawsuit, it’s a smart thing not to admit too, or deny the accusations.
Limp stated that “Sonos is a big partner of ours. We’ve been doing business with them for a long time, we’ve been selling Sonos products for a long time. When John [MacFarlane] was CEO, and now Patrick [Spence], we’ve been working with them night and day to do our integration with Alexa and put a large number of resources on it. From my standpoint, I feel good about the partnership.”
As expected, Limp did not comment on discussions that Amazon and Sonos have had privately. And nor would we expect them too. That’s essentially off-the-record conversations. Limp added that if you call Patrick Spence, the CEO of Sonos, he hopes he “would tell you that our partnership is healthy.”
Later in the interview, Limp was asked straight up, whether he was confident that Amazon was not infringing on Sonos’ technology. Limp stated that he was “confident that we did not infringe on their IP [Intellectual Property].”
He went on to talk about how Amazon built its solutions from a clean sheet of paper. Also mentioning that Amazon was the first out with a connected, voice-enabled speaker.
No drama between Amazon and Sonos it seems
Those that were hoping to see some drama when Amazon’s VP started talking about Sonos, will be disappointed.
Amazon is looking to keep Sonos as a partner, and it is also confident that it did not infringe on Sonos own intellectual property.
So far, we have not heard a word from Google about the lawsuit, and it’s likely we won’t. Since they are part of this lawsuit (Amazon is not, yet), and it’s smart to not say anything about it – as it can be used against you.