Evernote-branded device coming. Wait, what? - Silicon Valley Business Journal

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Paolo Vescia/San Francisco Business Times

Evernote CEO Phil Libin said he wants to partner with hardware manufacturers on "new and magical" devices.

Jon XavierWeb Producer- Silicon Valley Business JournalEmail �|�Twitter �|�Google+

It seems like everybody wants a device these days. First Facebook released its Facebook Home branded handset with HTC, and now Evernote CEO Phil Libin says he wants Evernote-branded hardware, too.

Speaking to reporters at the New Economy Summit in Tokyo, Libin said that the time had come for Evernote to start working with hardware manufacturers on its own "new and magical" devices.

"We won't actually do the manufacturing, but we'll do the co-design together," Libin told Network World. "Eventually, in a few years -- three, four, five -- I think we'll be ready to do something ourselves."

Of course, Evernote is already working to get on to purpose-built devices like scanners and digital cameras, so the idea of it doing co-design to create an Evernote-branded device isn't too out there. But the first thing that came to my mind when I read this is, "Why on earth would they want to do that?"

One of Evernote's main selling points, after all, is that it is device agnostic. Its service works equally well online as it does on dedicated Mac and PC software as it does on Android as it does on iOS. That seamless experience is one of the reasons people choose Evernote over, say, Microsoft OneNote, which by its very nature is going to be biased or perceived to be biased toward Windows devices.

Evernote working with one hardware company opens it up to accusations of favoritism from the others, and it might discourage people who don't have the official "Evernote device" from using the service. It sort of reminds me of what happened at Netflix, which wanted to release its own set top box until Reed Hastings realized that it would hurt adoption if it competed with potential service carriers by having its own hardware. (The Netflix box eventually became Roku.)

Libin said he isn't interested in going into existing device categories, but rather creating new ones, so it's possible that the effort could be entirely additive. But creating new device categories from scratch is tough. Evernote is smart, but it's stepping into unproven territory.

Jon Xavier is Web Producer at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1826.

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