Alphabet, For sale Boston Dynamics: Little robot profitable in the coming years

According to information not yet made official Alphabet could sell Boston Dynamics to Amazon or Toyota. Apparently, according to company executives, the robots are not a good investment for the coming years.

During 2013 Alphabet, then known as Google, he purchased the company Boston Dynamics that dealt primarily with the design and production of robots characterized by a very good balance and the ability to run operations until a few years ago were unthinkable.

According to a report in Bloomberg News, Alphabet is thinking of giving the specific division: among the possible, buyers are cited the Amazon and Toyota names.

This would be a partial abandonment, perhaps temporarily, by Google in robotics, especially dear field to one of the former managers of the company, Andy Rubin. We learned about robots from Boston Dynamics mainly through video released by the company on YouTube, and we read endless articles on the same skills, and the possible horrific consequences that you might have with the production of ” creatures ” so complex.

The problem at the basis of the company’s robot is another, at least for Alphabet is definitely a very ambitious project, but unlike many other futuristic projects of companies that might have some chance of being commercialized in the coming years, for robots, Boston Dynamics is not the same hope. It has probably not helped that the company is not able to successfully conclude the agreements with the military authorities interested in the project.

Although there is this lack of certainty by Alphabet, any potential buyers would not be asked twice before putting on the plate offer for Boston Dynamics. Amazon, for example, is investing massively in robotics: last 2012 had invested 775 million on Kiva System, and has developed a series of robotic solutions to improve the speed and efficiency of its stores.

Not to mention the project at the base of the drones shippers, of which Amazon is among the companies at the forefront in developing the project.

Amazon, it could be hampered by Toyota, which uses robots for the production of vehicles and the company’s products, and has focused recently as robotics, especially in terms of scientific research.

Boston Dynamics had been wanted in Google’s own Andy Rubin, one of the key men in the implementation of Android and the former head of its division during his work in the Mountain View company.

Rubin has left his position in the company at the end of 2014 to concentrate full-time on Playground, an incubator that puts a lot of emphasis on the field of robotics. Since its abandonment, Boston Dynamics has failed to integrate with other Alphabet projects and his robots have raised concerns about a possible use in professional environments at the expense of workers in flesh and bones.

The Alphabet executives probably do not want the company to be linked to such a radical concept, element, along with the prediction of poor sales. It could have played an important role in the decision, not yet formalized, to sell the division.