Strategy in TECH...
The innovation train keeps rolling down the track at Crestron who has had a string of new introductions in 2020. The company announced today a new line of touch screens in what they say is their “next generation” design known as the 70 Series Touch Screens. But if you only see photos of it, you won’t truly appreciate what it offers – a balance of both elegant design with tough, all-aluminum construction and a solid weighty feel.
Help Lightning, a new support solution the company likes to call “virtual expertise,” not only offers a new potential benefit for integrators to increase the amount of safe in-home support for their clients in these COVID-19 times – they also offer CEDIA members a free 60-day try-before-you-buy experience to test it out in your market with your clients. And in the middle of the pandemic, there has never been a better time to look at offering clients a new support solution that adheres to strict safety standards by limiting person-to-person exposure.
Political newsletter Axios ran a surprising graph this week showing a stunning disconnect between the confidence of consumers – measured by the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index – versus the confidence of CEOs (tracked separately by the Conference Board). While it is not entirely clear just what the ramifications may be of this huge disparity in how these two groups are feeling about the economy – it is nonetheless a notable disconnect.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Commerce released their latest report on residential construction for the month of September 2020. Like last month, the results on housing starts were mixed, with both good news for custom integrators and bad news for the overall industry – suggesting again that housing growth, while robust, is beginning to moderate.
Last week, in dramatic fashion, Harman (part of Samsung) brand Mark Levinson announced the launch of an entirely new 5000 series family of products, whose lower price tag is designed to appeal to an expanded share of the market of audio enthusiasts. In a combination of well-produced video segments, coupled with live presentations to the industry media, Harman executives laid out their vision for the brand and presented the details of the engineering and craftsmanship behind their new line of electronics and sources that included a preamp, power amp, turntable and streaming SACD player
The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) announced at the end of last week that Global President and CEO Tabatha O’Connor will “depart” the organization at the end of her contract period in January. The news caught many by surprise and the organization’s announcement gives no clue as to any of the reasons behind this leadership change.
Emerald Holding, Inc. (Formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc.) [NYSE: EEX], the company that owns the CEDIA Expo show and CE Pro, announced last week that its Board of Directors has authorized company managers to purchase up to $20 Million of Emerald’s stock in a share buyback program. As Strata-gee noted back in May in a report on the company’s large fiscal first quarter loss, this program had previously been suspended when cash had tightened up after the cancellation of their events due to COVID-19.
Now the company has been recapitalized, thanks to help from sugar daddy Onex who now owns more than 80% of the company, and – gosh – the stock is so darn cheap. Maybe now is the time to buy…
Kicking off their first ever virtual dealer event called Snap Pro Live, SnapAV unleashes a broad array of new products covering their wide gamut of product and service segments. Snap Pro Live runs for three days and kicked off today (Tuesday) afternoon with a keynote from CEO John Heyman – and this major product launch.
SnapAV kicked off their first major three-day virtual event called Snap Pro Live Tuesday afternoon. In a keynote presentation, SnapAV CEO John Heyman hailed the work of the integrator in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the dealer “took on the role of a courageous warrior.” And with that, Snap Pro Live was launched offering three full days packed with useful content. (See more details on Snap Pro Live here…)
Sound United announced today that it has closed on its acquisition of Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), as expected. With this deal, B&W is rejoined with Classé – a high-end electronics manufacturer that itself was once part of B&W but then was acquired by Sound United back in Jaunuary 2018.
