Strategy in TECH...
Multiple media outlets – including Strata-gee.com – last week published several stories about the passing of Crestron founder George Feldstein, someone who impacted the industry nationally. But we have learned about the passing of another iconic figure in electronics – if on a more regional basis. Mel Gross, one of the industry’s more colorful characters, and a leading sales representative in the Pacific Northwest territory, passed away at the end of last month.
Audio Control announced this week the availability of its new high performance HDBaseT extenders that allow installers and integrators the ability to safely and successfully run HDMI signals over long distances reliably. The company has been in the audio/video extender (baluns) business for some time now, with these new models – the HDBT-S1 and HDBT-R1 – pushing the performance edge.
Multiple sources are reporting – and we have confirmed – yet another management shake-up at Nortek, Inc…Denise Nemchev has abruptly left the company. Nemchev was brought in as Nortek’s Vice President of Business Transformation in April 2013. In August of this year, and in the wake of the dismissal of Sean Burke as head of the Technology Solutions Segment, Nemchev was promoted to President of the AV Tech segment.
Now, about 90-days later, she too is gone.
Yamaha Corporation released the results for its fiscal first semester or first half of the fiscal year 2015 (April 1, 2014 – September 30, 2014) with results generally positive, but mixed. Overall consolidated sales increased 4.4% to ¥206.4 billion ($1.9 billion) as compared to ¥197.7 billion ($1.8 billion) in the same period last year. But of some concern is the fact that only one of its four major business segments showed an increase in operating profits – and two of the four lost money during the period.
Spring Deck LLC, a start-up company that offers a new sales presentation solution for integrators, announced this week that it has cut an exclusive partnership deal with Azione Unlimited, a national buying group of dealers and integrators. According to Spring Deck, the deal makes its app and service instantly available Azione members…and at a specially discounted price.
We learned this week that the Chairman and Founder of Crestron, Mr. George Feldstein, passed away after a long illness. The news hit many in the custom integration industry particularly hard, as Mr. Feldstein is widely credited with helping not just build a company…but with also fueling the growth of the entire industry.
We were fortunate enough to receive an invitation from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) allowing us to participate in their annual Fall Construction Forecast presentation, a webinar put on for the benefit of their members last week. Boy! Are we glad we attended! Not only did the organization offer up a roster of world-class economists with really interesting insight into what’s going on in the economy – they also offered reams of really valuable data delineating the latest trends in construction.
[Read more…] about Economists Predict Rapid Ramp-Up in Residential Construction
Nortek, Inc., a diversified manufacturer of commercial and residential products largely targeted towards the new construction business, announced on Monday the financial results of the third quarter of their current fiscal year. Overall, the results were mostly positive, although two of their business units saw revenues decline in the quarter. Surprise…surprise…neither of them were the newly designated AVC (Audio Video Control) segment, as you (and we) might have suspected.
This story is being written on Halloween – hence, the “monsters” in the headline. On Thursday, Control4 released the financial results for their fiscal third quarter and held a conference call for analysts and investors. The numbers all looked good and the management team rightly crowed about their prowess. But during the Q&A session tough questions emerged…
Ingram Micro, Inc. released the financial results for their fiscal third quarter (the period ending Sept. 27, 2014) showing generally positive results. Sales for the quarter increased to $11.2 billion, a $1 billion or 11% increase over the $10.2 billion for the same period last year. According to Ingram Micro CEO Alain Monié, the increase was due primarily to “new wins” and “strong market share.”
But while gross profits were up, gross margins, operating income, and net income were all down for the period…and that fact led us to take a closer look.
