Strategy in TECH...
We have learned from multiple sources, and now confirmed with the company, that leading control systems provider Crestron will in fact have a presence at the upcoming CEDIA Expo this September in Dallas, TX. This news will come as a surprise, perhaps even a shock, to many considering that just a few months ago, the company announced its departure from the residential custom integration industry’s biggest annual event.
Back in the Fall of 2013, we told you about the birth of a new brand called Bluesound – a new networkable, high-quality wired and wireless multiroom music system. Almost simultaneously, and in response to the obvious success of Sonos we suspect, new systems from Bose, D&M Holdings (HEOS), and Lenbrook were all introduced. But Lenbook officials maintained that their system had an advantage over most of the other systems – they had created their own operating system called BluOS.
A dramatic new high-end line of loudspeakers, Horns by Auto-Tech, is now available from Chane Music and Cinema, the newly appointed North American distributor/retailer for the brand. The brand offers five different systems, each of which features the use of “well-tried” horn technology. Paul Klipsch would be proud!
This morning we learned a stunning statistic – Pokémon Go, that new game that incorporates augmented reality and that is all the rage right now – has hit an impressive milestone. According to data from MFour Mobile Research, Pokémon Go is now on more Android smartphones than Twitter.
ProSource announced this week the addition of 21 new members, a fairly large freshman class, even for the organization that bills itself as the “largest audio, video and integration buying group in the country.” According to the organization, this freshman class is worth about $43 million in total retail sales.
The ink is barely dry on their agreement to be acquired by Britain’s Melrose Industries PLC, and already Nortek Inc. finds themselves the subject of multiple investigations by several major law firms who have publicly notified shareholders this deal may not be a good one for them. It is not clear if these law firms intend to take action yet, but if so, it could be a complicating factor in the transaction.
The summer continues to heat up with the second major acquisition announcement in two days. Melrose, PLC, a UK-based investment company that buys underperforming companies, improves their operations, and then resells them, has acquired Nortek, Inc. in a deal that pays Nortek shareholders $86 per share – a 38% premium over yesterday’s closing price. The deal, an all-cash offer, is expected to close by the end of August.
News comes this 4th of July holiday week that Ingram Micro, itself just recently acquired by a Chinese shipping company, has sold off AVAD, LLC and AVAD Canada Ltd., to Kingswood Capital Management, a private equity company. In an announcement from Kingswood, the company says it has brought in a new upper management team – including a new CEO, industry veteran Tom Jacoby.
Nexia, a division of monster company Ingersoll Rand and supplier of smart home products and solutions, announced this week that Nexia-certified products will now be able to be controlled with simple voice commands through Amazon’s Echo. Clearly joining the new wave of companies who believe voice-command is the “next big thing” in home automation, Nexia is moving quickly to embrace voice control.
They’ve been hinting about it for months, now Russound makes it official, they will launch an all-new line of 70-volt products targeted for the light commercial market at the upcoming CEDIA Expo in Dallas in September. Although the company had no specific model/feature information for the press at this time, the news is noteworthy nonetheless as the company is clearly expanding into more commercial-appropriate products this year.
