Strategy in TECH...
We learned today that Bowers and Wilkins (B&W) is close to launching a new series of products that appear to be under the “Formation” brand or series name. This news broke when MacRumors, a fan blog for aficionados of Apples McIntosh products, noticed a listing on Apple’s online list of sanctioned HomeKit and AirPlay accessories. They dug deeper…
The headline caught my attention immediately – “Exclusive: Foxconn reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at Wisconsin plant.” This story, from the highly respected Reuters News Agency, follows a series of articles on Foxconn’s growing business struggles in the wake of a decline in sales to Apple. But it immediately raised a red flag with me…
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.
As you head home from work today, take a look around you at the other commuters on the road. All around you are Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, Suburus and the like. These are all signs of the incredible success Japan has has penetrating the U.S. automobile market – taking significant market share away from the once dominant Big Three American auto makers, GM, Ford, and Dodge/Chrysler many years ago.
Can Japan do it again? Are builders D.R. Horton, Lennar, PulteGroup, K.B. Homes at risk of the same loss of market share? If Takeshi Homma (pictured here) is successful, he hopes to help Japanese companies take a big bite of the American homebuilding market.
The Chinese government has targeted artificial intelligence (AI) as a technology they want to dominate globally. They are pouring billions of dollars annually into AI development and directing universities to focus on the technology in all of their fundamental research.
Now, in the first public demonstration of their progress in AI technology, the state-run Xinhua News Agency has introduced and demonstrated a pair of virtual news anchors or avatars based on two known Chinese flesh-and-blood reporters.
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.
When we last left Tivoli, the company created many years ago by Tom DeVesto who is now the CEO of Como Audio, it was 2015 and they had just been sold by one private equity company, with the help of another private equity company, to a third private equity company. Now word comes that the third private equity company, Serruya Private Equity of Toronto, which Strata-gee wrote about in June 2015, has sold Tivoli in a buyout to the company’s management in conjunction with a financial backer.
Onkyo Corporation, parent of the Onkyo, Integra, and Pioneer AV brands, is expanding its OEM business unit to help build its business and offset losses it has experienced over the last five years, according to a report by the Nikkei in Japan. Investors are said to be skeptical of the move, but the company is targeting the automotive segment in India where they expect to see significant growth.
DTS announced this week that is has signed on International Audio Group (IAG), parent company of Mission and QUAD, as a new hardware partner in the DTS Play-Fi whole-home audio ecosystem. IAG joins a growing sphere of major brands supporting the DTS multi-room, wireless music system.
All the way back in 2012, Onkyo Corp. and Gibson Guitar Corp. came together to partner in what both hoped would become an entity where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Just months after their announcement, Onkyo forged ties to another Japanese audio brand, Teac/Tascam – just as Gibson stepped in to buy a majority share of them…and the combined entity began to grow.
Little did they know that just six short years later, Gibson, the investor in Onkyo, would implode into bankruptcy – forced to extricate itself from its Onkyo aspirations. Onkyo was hit as well, losing its Gibson investment – forcing them to reassess their direction. We now learn that Onkyo has sold off its entire European operations to an accessory distributor known as Aqipa GmbH.
