I’ve been doing some thinking about what a service like Riya could potentially be worth to companies like Google, Yahoo or even Microsoft. Most of us have heard the rumors that Google is offering to buy out Riya for $40 million, and that seems like an astronomical number. It’s just a rumor, of course, so please don’t take my words as anything but that. If you stop and think about it, though, you start to realize that to someone like Microsoft, Riya could be worth a whole lot more. The possibilities of including Riya’s technology in Windows Vista boggles the mind; can you imagine having facial recognition software right out of the box? I’d wager that the real price of Riya, if they do sell the property eventually, will be somewhere above $200 million, and that’s a bare minimum. We could see a bidding war escalate, especially if Google decides that THEY would like to include something like Riya in this oft-rumored web-based OS they’re supposedly buildilng.
Thank you to all the folks from Riya who’ve linked me from the official Riya blog and your personal blogs. I hope it comes through that I’m a geniune fan and can’t wait to try this software out!
Posted by Jeremy Botter 