When Kiva Systems' little organic robotic shelving movers were acquired by Amazon in 2012, the availability of the devices became scarce in the industrial marketplace, especially for competitors who began using the robots before the acquisition.
Kiva originally built 20,000 new robots for Amazon, and businesses did not want to fund their competitors' efforts by buying their merchandise from Amazon.
Most recently, Amazon demonstrated the Kiva Systems robots at the 2014 Modex Show in Atlanta and disclosed that they will be making the technology available to specific partners, which will seemingly open a door that has been long closed.
Read the full article here.
See the robots in action by watching the following video:
