Strategy in TECH...
Nortek, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Anthro Corporation through its Ergotron division. Anthro makes and designs a range of technology furniture. Nortek said that it financed the purchase using cash on hand and its existing asset-based lending facility.
Spring Deck, LLC (SpringDeck) made two significant announcements this week – one sales-oriented, and the other service-oriented. First, the company announced plans to begin hiring sales representative companies around the United States to sell its unique sales presentation software and app to custom integrators. Second, the company announced a new “pilot” or test program, offering an affordable way to access their large database of vendor marketing materials.
Sharp Corp. this week began warning the media and, through them, investors that it is likely to miss its forecasts for revenues and profits for the fiscal year set to end March 31, 2015…and miss big. Just days after the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where Sharp excitedly showed a large roster of new products, the company is hinting that it may have to take extraordinary steps to stem a newly expected tide of red ink.
OmniMount, part of Ergotron…which is part of Nortek…showed a new product concept at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month at their private, invitation-only booth. The product is a new concept home product…potentially a real solution to some of the more modern emerging home storage issues. Called the WorkSpace Wall Organizer, will this solution find its say onto the wall in your home?
We are just learning that the South Korean Labor Ministry has issued an order to LG Display Co. Inc., to stop all operations at an OLED panel production line following reports of a nitrogen gas leak. While details are sketchy, the news was reported by Reuters out of Seoul, South Korea and is apparently the result of some type of industrial accident that occurred during the process of manufacturing OLED panels.
GoPro, Inc., the specialty manufacturer of sports-oriented cameras and camcorders, saw its stock plummet 12% in just one day on Tuesday when word leaked out of a new patent awarded to Apple, Inc. that appears to be for a remote control camera system. Although there was no official announcement from Apple about the product, word about the patent and its possible impact on GoPro spread around Wall Street like wildfire.
New data released by the Commerce Department showed an unexpectedly large drop in retail sales for the month of December. In fact, U.S. retail sales had their largest across-the-board drop in the past eleven months – plunging economists into vigorous debate over just what this means for the economy.
AVAD, LLC, the custom integration-centric distribution division of Ingram Micro, announced today that it is launching its 2015 Vendopalooza program, the seventh year it has offered the traveling mini-trade show for dealers. And first up in the event schedule is on January 22nd at AVAD’s Irvine, California branch location.
SpringDeck, a sales presentation software company, has partnered with Relidy Marketing to offer integrators a new service that will help them showcase products on their website in a way that will ensure they retain ownership of the prospect/customer. The service is all-new and only available through this partnership.
Tampa, FL-based DOW Electronics, Inc. announced this week that it has reached “an agreement in principle” to acquire Eagle Distributors, LLC of Kenner, Louisiana. The deal, which represents a rather dramatic expansion of DOW’s geographic reach, is expected to close by mid- to late-February.
