And here comes another streaming player...

The small speakers and soundbars look like they are not aimed at customers of Naim separates, integrated amps, etc., and their direct competition.  Aimed at customers of Sonos hardware, Bose wave radios, etc.  All fine for their target audience.  Of course the markets start to converge at the Mu-So, where Naim have offered an all-in-one aimed at the hi fi market. 

On the software / integration front, it's yet another (or more accurately an expansion of yet another) proprietary solution.  We have Apple Play, we have Sonos, we have Google Cast, we have UPnP . . . far away from a unified theory of connectivity.  There is a war out there to own this space.

It remains to be seen whether Google or others can or even want to move into the high-end hi fi market.  I presume that there will continue to be a market for such high-end hi fi, and that a $10,000 preamp won't be preempted by a $599 box with one chip in it.  If I'm wrong about that, well . . . I guess in my dotage I'll be enjoying really high quality sound really inexpensively!

What no Spotify, how can any serious streamer look to compete without it!!

Absolutely, the small speakers/soundbars is not Naim territory. but I think the challenge will be when people (Naim customers) start 'asking/demanding/etc for the particular firmware (in this case Google cast) to be incorporated into their player... Just like we did with Spotify, now Tidal, etc

Exactly

I guess that sums up the reason for my original post.... Its like the VHS/BETA war x 10

And Sony bring back the walkman.

For £950

I doubt Google will move into the high end market - they have no interest in the audio side of the hardware. This is another way to get more people using their app ecosystem via more devices, and therefore increase google's reach as the default operating system of the web. As they've demonstrated with the Nexus and other devices - their goal seems to be more of a proof of concept/reference design for their software than devices directly.  What they are demonstrating is "casting" app content onto other devices (audio and TV sets.) So, this isn't really streaming - its more like adding a new output to an existing stream (spotify, upnp, pandora, etc.) Like all google software, Chrome Cast is free and open: https://developers.google.com/cast/

Naim seems to be doing what Chrome cast does on the Muso and Spotfy through the Naim app. Who knows, maybe they are using Chrome Cast... The nice thing about this arrangement is that the output device (TV, or potentially a piece of network enabled audio gear) picks up the stream directly from the internet, not through your iOS or Android device. So, we can still enjoy all of Naim's audio quality, without relying on sending the actual stream between the mobile device and the audio equipment. UPNP works the same way.

Personally, it seems like you should be able to add new streams fairly flexibly, though integrating other people's web services is never as easy as it "should" be.

Why not make the Naim app (via Chrome Cast or their existing set up) everyone's new favorite "switchboard" for integrating audio streams (Spotify, Pandora, Quboz, Tidal, the new Naxos one, etc., etc.)  Naim's already made a huge investment in it, and they'd get some nice affiliate revenue from all the subscriptions they'd drive for the services.

My concern is Naim's ability to flexibly add new streams and keep pace with their software development. They seem to be embracing the reality that they are really a software company way too slowly, though hopefully with the development work they did for Muso and the app this has changed.