Strategy in TECH...
Spotify Technology, S.A. announced that it will lay off approximately 1,500 employees, or about 17% of its entire staff. The company says the cuts are necessary to adjust operations for a very different operating environment than it anticipated when it built staff to drive growth in 2020 during the pandemic.
These are not its first layoffs in 2023…
Nationwide Marketing Group’s Oasys Residential Technology Group division reported this week that its membership has grown “over 100%” in 2023, a remarkable achievement in a relatively short period of time. It also propels the overall organization towards its publicly stated goal of achieving a total of at least 1,000 custom integration members across its three brands as part of its “Drive to 1,000,” first announced in March this year.
Darren Myers doesn’t look like your typical audio electronics engineer. He also doesn’t sound like a typical audio engineer. A young guy with fresh ideas…maybe they make sense, maybe they don’t…I had an unusual, thought-provoking, and even at times surprising conversation with Darren Myers, Parasound’s Vice President of Research and Development.
See what Myers thinks about the revitalization of Parasound and what he believes is an exciting and expanding future for the entire high end audio industry.
Masimo Corporation (NASDAQ: MASI) scored a big win Thursday in its ongoing battles with Apple, Inc. when the United States International Trade Commission (USITC or ITC) sided largely with Masimo and issued a Limited Exclusion Order and a Cease and Desist Order against certain Apple Watch models that infringe on select Masimo patents. This exclusion order bans the import of those models that incorporate Masimo’s patented light-based pulse oximetry technology in violation of U.S. trade laws.
MQA Limited has notified Companies House, the U.K. government agency that is roughly equivalent to our Securities and Exchange Commission, that it has changed its name. After nine years as MQA Limited, the company will now be known as Wave Realisations Limited.
After receiving an extension from the court giving them more time to respond, AVA, Inc. and Josh.ai, Inc. formally filed their responses to the Snap One, LLC lawsuit filed against them this past summer. With these filings, we have completed the end of the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a long dance marathon of patent and trade secret litigation.
VOXX International Corporation (Voxx) (NASDAQ: VOXX), a manufacturer and distributor of a wide range of automotive and consumer electronics products, late on Tuesday released its second quarter of fiscal 2024 financial results for the period ending August 31, 2023. These results mostly echoed those of its first quarter and the company says it is still dealing with multiple negative macroeconomic factors such as a durable drop in consumer spending, inflated retail inventories, a UAW strike, and remaining supply chain challenges. However, the results in the second quarter were slightly more moderate than in the first quarter and there was a modest improvement on a sequential basis.
Last week, Sonos quietly let the Securities and Exchange Commission know that Panos Panay resigned from the Sonos board of directors, effective September 27, 2023. They made no public announcement that I am aware of, even though this news could have a major impact on the company’s direction. Why? Simply because Panos Panay is one of the most respected technology product gurus in the industry – so much so that Sonos trumpeted his arrival loudly when they convinced him to join their board in 2020.
Separately, and within just days of the exit of Panay, the company announced three “new” (I’ll explain the quotes around the word new below) additions to its executive team, including a new, promoted from within, Chief Product Officer…
Audio America, Inc., the surviving entity that merged with Next Level Distribution and Next Level Fulfillment has filed formal paperwork for an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC), a form of receivership, with the Circuit Court of the 17th Judicial Circuit in Broward County, Florida. The move was widely rumored but only confirmed Tuesday. Also joining in this ABC is another entity known as Ecomhalo, LLC, a related company.
The news confirms much of what we heard last month regarding the impending liquidation of a major U.S. distribution company.
VOXX International Corporation [NASDAQ: VOXX] (VOXX Int’l) announced this morning before the stock market opened several executive changes, including the extension of the employment agreement of VOXX Chief Executive Officer Pat Lavelle. How did Wall Street react to this news? The value of VOXX stock showed a significant decline on a day when the NASDAQ exchange, where VOXX is traded, saw an overall increase of nearly +2/3rds of a percent.
