Strategy in TECH...
Boulder, CO-based PS Audio, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketer of higher end audio electronics products, announced this week that they are launching a record company called Octave Records. The company says Octave “is dedicated to preseving the art of high-fidelity recordings and compensating musicians fairly.”
COVID-19, the massive pandemic that changed everything this year, probably infected your business and perhaps made it ill in a way that will take time to recover. But for Emerald Expositions, the national expositions company that owns the CEDIA Expo show and CE Pro – COVID-19 almost killed them.
Now Emerald’s sugar daddy, Onex Corporation, is ready to throw them a lifeline…a $400 million lifeline to be exact.
I would hope that by now long time Strata-gee readers had already anticipated this day, and now it’s official that this day has come – the U.S. economy is in a recession. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone. However, I know that there are some I’ve spoken with who were expecting a “rubber ball” rebound where – almost magically – everything, including business levels, would bounce back to normal quickly. This seemed to be based more on wishful thinking, or just general optimism, rather than anything factually based.
I suspect some of those folks might be a little surprised to learn that the economy is sliding into recession.
It seemed as if 2020 was destined to represent a year of hardship, illness, and death in the wake of a still simmering COVID-19 pandemic – not to mention its impact on the economy. Then, a white police officer in Minnesota was filmed with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who died. That officer, along with three others present, was charged with murder. And a fuse was lit that erupted into street protests which were largely peaceful with some acts of violence in cities around the country.
This scenario – white police officer killing an unarmed black man – is an all-too familiar one here in the United States…but this time, people took to the streets both here and around the world. And a growing list of powerful brands, including a few in our industry, are stepping forward to take a stance on the issue.
Wow, surprising numbers from a new research report from Parks Associates shows that control system adoption jumped a full 38% in 2019 as compared to 2018. That’s a really big jump in a really short period of time.
U.K. based high-end electronics manufacturer Chord Electronics has selected The Sound Organization, of Arlington, TX, as its importer and distributor for the North American market. The move follows the termination of their previous distributor, Bluebird Music who is said to have represented the line for 20-years.
Outlaw Audio, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketer of specialty electronics and speakers, is running a new type of promotion – one that may be totally in tune with the COVID-19 dominated world of today. Now, consumers making a qualifying purchase from Outlaw Audio can receive a number of high quality N95 masks included with their order for free.
A few months ago, I unexpectedly became unemployed. There had been occasions in my career when it was clear that I needed to get the hell out of Dodge —but this wasn’t one of them.
A new job would not appear overnight; that was obvious. I was up to my ears in fearful self-absorption.
Then things changed…and the world was in upheaval.
No doubt about it, Crestron is on a roll. They have recently had a series of announcements – not of the ho-hum type, but of the more meaningful, perhaps industry-changing type. Now we learn about another new partnership being announced – Crestron is working with Logitech and Zoom to deliver HomeTime, an upgraded home video conferencing solution perfect for this strange new work-from-home (WFH) world in which we all find ourselves.
On Wednesday, we learned that Savant Systems Inc. (Savant), has acquired the lighting business from none other than the mighty GE. Terms of the transaction were not released, but the Wall Street Journal reports that “the transaction valued the unit at around $250 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.” GE has been a major lighting provider for over a hundred years.
