Amazon boss Andy Jassy criticizes competition watchdogs in Brussels and Washington for preventing his company from purchasing the robot vacuum pioneer iRobot.
Amazon boss Andy Jassy blames competition watchdogs in Brussels and Washington for torpedoing his company’s purchase of the robot vacuum pioneer iRobot. Jassy pointed out that after the deal was canceled, iRobot had to fight against Chinese competitors – and modern vacuum robots create a 3D scan of the household.
“The regulators in the West ultimately made it clear that they trust these two large Chinese companies more than Amazon when it comes to plans for US consumers’ homes,” Jassy complained in an interview with US broadcaster CNBC. The big question now is whether iRobot will survive in the long term, he said.
“That’s not our model”
By purchasing the industry pioneer, Amazon wanted to expand its role in the connected home. iRobot is best known for its self-propelled vacuum cleaners under the brand name Roomba. However, the EU Commission saw a risk that Amazon could hinder iRobot’s rivals on its trading platform. Jassy dismissed the concerns: “That’s not our model.” Amazon earns at least as much money from selling other providers’ devices as it does from its own.
The Amazon boss confirmed earlier media reports that after the veto in Europe, US competition authorities also announced their opposition to the takeover. After Amazon finally abandoned its purchase plans in January, iRobot, which has 350 employees, laid off almost a third of its workforce. Overall, it was a “sad story,” said Jassy.
The trigger for the criticism was the question of whether Amazon would have the confidence to take over an AI company like the chatbot developer Anthropic in view of the competition authorities. The chatbot Claude comes from Anthropic, which competes with the well-known software ChatGPT from the start-up OpenAI. Amazon is a billion-dollar investor in Anthropic – similar to how Microsoft made a pact with OpenAI. Jassy criticized that, given the position of the competition watchdog, we currently don’t know what is allowed. Some authorities went beyond their legal authority, he said, without naming them.
Source: Stern
