Business as usual in America nowadays :/
If it all this suit cost Best Buy were the damages and penalties we already know about, then they are already close to wiped out on the deal (27MM vs. ~35MM, less legal). But that still doesn't capture it, because Best Buy spent money to clone this startup's offering and also to run the company and keep the lights on in the stores, which are expenses not captured in Best Buy's gross margin.
Incidentally, the 22MM figure also didn't get pulled out of some judge's butt. If you read the jury's finding, it's the amount of unjust enrichment Best Buy achieved by misusing Techforward's property.
In the very worst case scenario, virtually every penny of profit from this program was redirected from Best Buy to the winners of the lawsuit. But it's even more likely that Best Buy took a bath even beyond the imputed profits we're talking about.
(A more picayune point is that a small profit or a loss to Best Buy in one case doesn't mean that its practices are not a net expected profit; indeed, if they weren't losing an occasional case, they probably aren't taking enough risks to make the most possible profit.)
Also, best buy pays ~27 million (adjusting for the time value of money over two years at 2.5% gives us 25 million, btw) for a golden goose they can reuse year over year and had they build it themselves they wouldn't have had it immediately. I don't have all the details, but the project (including legal costs) will likely pay for itself before 5 years is up. They also mitigated any risk with building it themselves and doing it wrong which would cost additional time and money.
As a side note, I am curious if the court decision has any impact on the possible of Best Buy whoring out their duplicate system.
Meanwhile, Best Buy no longer operates the buyback program. The program wasn't a golden goose.
Furthermore, I will happily make the "extraordinary" claim that, in general, large companies are incentivized to minimize margins to reap the tax benefits. Then again I am Joe Blow with a whole 46 karma, therefore, I must not be as smart or knowledgeable as a lurker like you with 1000's of karma, right? (oh and this one is a rhetorical question)
As usual on this particular site, if someone doesn't like the truth, they simply think its wrong because they don't like it. I half expected to get super down voted by all the closed minded individuals that have <~500 karma, but I guess you had the skeleton shift ehh tptacek.
As far as the golden goose goes, even if they scrap the program they are still better off. Does it sound better pouring far more money into building what you think is a golden goose only to make a lemon? That and they still have the system if they want to modify it and roll it out again a couple years from now. Also, they got the system right away and immediately got feedback from it. They saved a lot of time, time that they will use now on more lucrative projects.
Ohh maybe you have a blog. But, in all seriousness, avoid procreating, there are enough retarded people that society has to care for.