Strategy in TECH...
In what most Japanese media are calling a due diligence blunder, a potential deal for Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, to buy Sharp Corp. was nearly scuttled when over $3 billion in potential additional liabilities suddenly came to light. The development caused Foxconn to pull back and, ultimately, launch an even deeper and more detailed analysis of the opportunity.
On Monday of this week, Thiel Audio Products, Inc. unexpectedly announced that it has hired a new CEO for the organization. This announcement appears to refer to the CEO we previously told you about back in October 2015, although the release announces his appointment retroactively, effective January 15, 2016.
Raleigh, NC-based Cary Audio announced this week that they will allow their high-end specialty electronics line to be sold online. At first blush, this looks like yet another specialty brand disrupting their bricks-and-mortar dealer base in favor of powerful online dealers – much like our recent story on McIntosh Labs doing just that. But this time, Cary took a completely different approach – one that takes their local dealers along with them.
We have learned through multiple sources that McIntosh Labs, the high-end American brand that was thrust into the limelight recently when it came to light that the company was authorizing internet sales of its specialty brand, has experienced a bit of a management shake-up. Specifically, two top executives have resigned their positions at the company in just the last few days.
Last week, we broke the news on Strata-gee.com that McIntosh Laboratories, historically a strong supporter of specialty A/V dealers, had decided to open up sales through the Internet. This decision hit the existing, largely offline, McIntosh specialty dealers hard…many reaching out to us to express their frustration.
The same day our story was posted, McIntosh electronically distributed a letter to dealers from Dan Wakefield, VP of North American Sales for McIntosh, explaining the company’s decision.
Toshiba Corp. has pulled the plug on a highly-touted smart glasses project – a product similar in concept to the recently cancelled consumer version of Google Glass. What’s most interesting about this decision by Toshiba is that they made it just days before the originally scheduled – and loudly promoted – launch date.
The Associated Press is reporting that Ingram Micro, Inc., best known as parent company to custom integration distributor AVAD, has been sold to Tianjin Tianhai, a Chinese Shipping company in a deal worth roughly $6 billion. The all-cash deal works out to approximately $38.90 per Ingram Micro share, well over its previous close of $29.42.
Multiple sources have told us that McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a brand once deeply committed to the specialty electronics retail channel, has notified dealers by phone that for the first time in its history the company will allow Internet retailers to sell the brand. The list of online dealers that will be authorized to sell McIntosh products includes Amazon.com. The news has sent a shock around their dealer base and we have heard from several very loyal, long-time McIntosh dealers…who are very, very angry.
We learned this week that two large New York Metro area rep firms have joined together to create a mega-rep firm offering an impressively large assortment of largely custom integration-oriented lines. The two firms are Audio Associates of Somerset, NJ and Thea & Schoen of Clifton, NJ…and the news is sure to shake up the market.
Just before the Consumer Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) held its annual Expo in Dallas in October 2015, we learned it had appointed a new Chief Executive Officer – Vincent Bruno, who joined the organization after leaving his role as a marketing director for Crestron Electronics. Bruno, who went through an extensive executive search process, hit the ground running, including trying to meet as many members as possible at the show.
But now, months later, the organization is trying to regain momentum after some concerning issues came to light, the most recent being the exit of Crestron, which we announced last week. Bruno described his go-forward plan…and it is ambitious.
