3D Robotics Inc., one of the better-funded, high-profile drone startups, is laying off an undisclosed number of its staff in a restructuring aimed at moving more quickly into the commercial market, due to heavy competition in the consumer drone market.
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I wonder for how long they will keep selling the Pixhawk before they go into big trouble
Lots of funding means nothing.... sooner or later inverstors will want their food supply, its all about sales and 3DR has been loosing terraing consistently by lack of organization. Its a bubble bursting now I think.
Truth is Chris was always interested in starting a business rather than DIY. Figured this out early by watching his videos online. Problem is you can't based a business on free IP. Market forces and competition etc. Did DJI ever have an open platform? However on the positive side we got dronecode and now ardupilot.org which is great for the community. 3DR are in a tight spot but with some careful strategic plays they may be able to make it. No interest to us though. I purchased a HKPilot32 and very impressed. the future for us are the likes of hobbyking etc...
They totally stuffed up with the price of the solo. the original price was ludicrous. Not even worth a look in when a phantom 3 was so much cheaper, with camera, gimbal, etc. It's hardly surprising that this has happened, but i feel it could have been avoidable as well.... honestly, what did they think was going to happen? i'm so disappoined they didnt make a dent in DJI. They really needed some penetration pricing instead of just wacking whatever they thought it was worth on the price tag. How was that ever going to work?
time to sell my solo i guess, i assume there will be pretty limited firmware updates and support now.
Im still trucking along doing my thing. Sales are definitely down this year, but I have this thing called a job, so I literally can't go broke. ;-)
DIYD should be fine and it should still have a prominent place in the Open Source or "Open Standards" community of professionals, prosumers, and enthusiasts. I think it needs a makeover and probably needs a mission statement along with some thought to generating enough revenue to pay its way - I would guess it has been funded by 3DR.
I would love to be proven wrong but 3DR's prospects may not be as obviously rosy in the commercial space even if it makes sense to move into that field. There will be stiff competition there as well and 3DR have not done any hardware development in a while. Firmware does not fly itself.
If DIYdrones.com had not been there then 99.9% members here now at this website would have not gained whatever they have actually achieved in terms of knowledge and competency.
I respect this website along with Chris, Jordi and all developers from the depth of my heart !
3DR's pivot makes sense - the drone industry landscape is a lot different from what it was even a year ago. The consumer market is a lot more cutthroat, with increased competition from new startups and pressure from DJI. Their partnership with Apple was a smart move, and that's going to make it even harder to compete with them in that space going forward. I would have liked to see more competition, and it's sad that 3DR isn't able to be that competitor.
The laid-off staff, some of whom came from DJI, are highly talented and will no doubt find work elsewhere.
3DR will continue on the commercial side. However, DJI and many other companies have already entered that space as well - competition there will be bloody as well. I hope 3DR is able to thrive in that space and I applaud their efforts, no matter what happens. I always found it amazing that Chris was able to devote time to DIYDrones and function as a CEO at the same time. I wonder if something will have to give in the future though.
DIYDrones can be easily turned into
Open Corporation
and micro payments can be done on peer to peer basis via Paypal,
as successfully implemented by my friends from San Francisco.
I have previous experience managing Large Open Corporation in Austin, Texas
in the past, as board member and CEO.
There is still room for 3DR Solo and DIYDrones integration to keep
all developers active, funded and happy.
Since if DIYDrones is closed, there is no contact point to keep present developers
active and integrated.
I would like to turn DIYDrones into Open Corporation, Open Technology Park
with groups of developers, teams managed by challenges set.
Such Open Corporation could give jobs and full-time activity up to 1,000 man r&d team,
otherwise we have to learn to read drone manuals in chinese as quick as possible.
Open Technology Prk made of fabrication shop, labs, testing site, to build commercial drones out of box.
Users are ready to make micro payments for service, for consultation, for advice
via PayPal to save time and avoid drone crash and other problems.
it s the end...it s so sad!!!
but it could be a great thing if this project stay open source without commercial mind behind the project!!
for example 2 usd for each firmware release , and keep a good price without huge margin for the pixhawck2(to avoid chinese copy..)
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