Great Throughts Treasury

"For now NAO is a platform for exploring robotics that universities, schools and professionals buy and use. But there have already been some individuals who want to buy it, mostly technicians and programmers likewise to have a robot to program; we have already responded positively to some in 2009, we will respond to others in 2010 before launching a consumer series. As our business model develops many paths are opening up to us and it’s difficult to known which will be the best. What we do know for sure is that over the coming years we will continue to develop both hardware and software, so more robots and lots of applications for NAO. In terms of scoops, that’s not our policy… we’re currently perfectly transparent about all our developments, with our community of enthusiasts. If anyone reading about us wants to find out things that they don’t yet know about Nao, we’ll be delighted to welcome them on our forums!"

"The year 2010 of robotics is the year 1980 of IT. In our view we’re now in a short-term time horizon; between 2 and 5 years for the first steps of the mass market. Then by 2020 we’ll see a steady growth in the number of users, pioneers in this sector, who will want to advance and participate in this new revolution with a relatively small number of products available, which will define standards. It’s easy to imagine the start of a massive democratization of descendants of Nao within the next ten years, the second step."