Strategy in TECH...
As we rapidly approach the end of the holiday season, it’s time to close out 2021 and celebrate the launch of another new year. And while 2021 might not quite have measured up to what some had hoped it would be, there is always hope for a better tomorrow. New year = new opportunity!
Yes, the holidays are finally here! And with them comes the glorious opportunity to spend time with family and friends and kick back a little. I wanted to take a moment and share some thoughts on Holidays 2021.
Last year at this time, I pondered whether it was possible to be thankful at Thanksgiving in a year that contained so much pain and suffering. With 2020 as the year of COVID-19, there was so much negativity everywhere, how could we possibly be thankful? Part of my answer was to look forward to the “return to normalcy” as we exited the pandemic in 2021. Whoops!
Recently I heard some concerning information on just what Savant was planning to do with their recently acquired GE Lighting division. Concepts like Savant entering the DIY market…and GE Lighting bringing high-end home automation to the Home Depot/Lowes channel…were confusing and not the typical Savant marketing strategy. So I reached out to the company for clarification. In a Zoom interview with Savant President J.C. Murphy, I learned much more about the strategy behind the company’s acquisition of GE Lighting, and how they intend to integrate – and cross-pollinate – the technologies, engineering, and capabilities between the two companies.
Murphy cleared up the confusion and revealed their smart, smart home strategy – with the GE Lighting and Savant brands well-positioned.
Talk about your contradiction of contradictions! Is the internet the greatest invention to emerge over the last ten or twenty years…or the worst? I guess, depending on the context, it is both. But lately, there have been some troubling cyberattack developments coming out of the hacker world that have caused the associated risks to have risen to a scary level.
I found some useful commonsense tactics you can employ to help protect yourself from a damaging cyberattack. No one can give you a 100% guarantee that they have a foolproof system that is undefeatable. But, as one security expert once told me about home security, you can only hope to fortify your defenses such that the hackers choose to move on to an easier target.
Late in the day on Tuesday, Sonos held an investor event – their first such event – and kicked it off by announcing the new Roam portable speaker. While the $169 MSRP Roam speaker was interesting, I was more interested in trying to figure out the thinking behind why they wanted this small and relatively inexpensive portable as their next big thing.
Vizio Holding Corp. (Vizio) filed an S-1 registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO) of its stock on the public market. Their offering is being handled by J.P. Morgan and BoA, both of whom will act as lead book runners for the offering. The company hopes to use the symbol VZIO on the New York Stock Exchange.
But this isn’t their first try at going public.
On the first day of the virtual CES 2021 earlier this month, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) released their latest forecast for the total retail sales of technology in the United States. After a record year in 2020, the tech industry association says, collective retail sales are forecast to increase a robust 4.3% for a total of $461 billion in 2021.
We made it to the end of 2020! What a wild year it it has been. See my message for you during this unique holiday period following an incredibly challenging year for all of us.
In 2020, maybe now more so than ever before in our lives…it is an especially good time to pause and contemplate giving thanks at Thanksgiving. But…are you finding it hard to feel thankful about 2020?
