Robot Vacuum Roomba Maker Files for Bankruptcy After 35 Years

Re:Robot Vacuum Roomba Maker Files for Bankruptcy After 35 Y... by LightBug1 on Monday December 15, 2025 @05:54AM (#46272831)

Yeah, "Chinese companies just copies" was 10-15 years or beyond. No way is that relevant now.

I've been wondering about why this is. With no evidence, I wondered if one of the reasons is the long term result of the many design and engineering graduates (I notice an incredible amount in the industry I work in) who were educated in the "best western uni's" and have now returned home and grown up.

They were a honeypot for said uni's for so long. But the end result may now mean they're kicking all asses in product markets.

It can't just be cheap labour ... or maybe it's the combination.

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Re:Robot Vacuum Roomba Maker Files for Bankruptcy After 35 Y... by zdragnar on Monday December 15, 2025 @07:33AM (#46273649)

It is definitely still relevant. A friend showed me two products- one from a US manufacturing company he worked for, and one on alibaba- that were practically identical. One was designed and developed, the other an illegal rip off.

The lack of WTO rule enforcement has always been a problem.

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Re:Robot Vacuum Roomba Maker Files for Bankruptcy After 35 Y... by djmips on Monday December 15, 2025 @07:31AM (#46273629)

I feel like there is a hypothesis that open source and open science has helped the West but the IP laws have slowed innovation whereas China is kind of an open source culture internally which confera an advantage.

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Re:Robot Vacuum Roomba Maker Files for Bankruptcy After 35 Y... by 6510 on Monday December 15, 2025 @06:45AM (#46273233)

While I would love to attribute it to their culture of hard work I believe the credit should go to the combined effect of poor choices made in the west. You cant begin to list our spending on bullshit directly nor instances of money intended for useful things that was lost in bureaucracy. China does this too of course but we are so much better at it.

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