Strategy in TECH...
Onkyo USA announced this week that it will become a retailer of Sonos wireless music systems – selling the company’s wireless music systems on Onkyo USA’s website. The company also says it will distribute the brand nationally as well.
SnapAV announced today that it will begin distributing Sonos wireless music systems beginning next month in October. The company says it will offer the entire line – including the Sonos Port, Sonos Move, and Sonos One SL – as part of its extensive assortment of gear targeted to the professional custom integrator.
On Wednesday, the country’s largest payroll processor, ADP, announced that private-sector employers hired 27,000 people in May. This number was a dramatic reversal from their report on April hiring, which said employers added a remarkable 271,000 people. Many economists and market analysts expressed shock at the surprisingly low number.
Last week’s Strata-gee story on the final liquidation of what remains of Thiel not only drew a huge number of readers, it also sent a big chunk of them on to the auctioneer’s website (McLemore Auctions). Many of those readers who journeyed to the auction were in search of a great deal on a good line of Thiel speakers. But then, in an unexpected twist, a source reached out to Strata-gee to offer a warning to those in search of a great deal on Thiel.
We have followed Foxconn for years now, first picking up on them in 2012 when news had emerged that a significant Apple supplier was having problems with employees committing suicide – eventually forcing the company to install ‘suicide nets’ on their taller factories and offices to help thwart further suicide attempts. Foxconn has continued on to become one of Apple, Inc.’s largest iPhone supplier of parts and assembly.
Just a matter of months ago, Gibson Brands management assured the town elders of Memphis, TN that the company remained committed to the vibrant music community in Memphis and that they were looking for new digs somewhere within that community. But that was then and this is now – the company was basically taken over by KKR and now the company has decided to vacate Memphis, moving their group there to Nashville.
No doubt about it, Apple Inc. supplier Foxconn has had a really bad week. First, last Tuesday Wisconsin voters kicked Republican Governor Scott Walker out of office, replacing him with Democrat Tony Evers. Then early this week, the company released financial results with disappointing earnings that missed analysts estimates. Both of these unrelated events have combined to cause market analysts to question the company’s strategy going forward.
SnapAV, a leading provider of custom integration brands and products, announced today that it has acquired Volutone, a respected California-based distributor with seven locations throughout California and Nevada. The move expands SnapAV’s local touch points in a key market, a strategy that first emerged with their earlier acquisition of another large regional distributor in March of this year, Chicago’s Allnet Distributing.
Although owned by an agribusiness tycoon who is rumored to be extremely wealthy, Thiel Audio Products Company last Tuesday declared bankruptcy. The company filed papers with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court saying it had assets of around $900,000 and liabilities of over $1,800,000. The filing was a bitter end to a sad series of developments over the last six years, with new owner David B. Griffin changing management teams at least five times in one five-year period. The result was a constant, if slow, slide down the slippery slope of ruin.
Melrose PLC, owner of Nortek, including Nortek Security & Control, is openly talking to U.K. media about the likelihood of selling off Nortek – saying, in essence, their work is done, the turnaround is complete. This being the case, their thinking is that it is time to harvest their crop by selling off the company to reap their reward of profits.
