Strategy in TECH...
Cool Things I Saw at CEDIA Expo 2018San Diego, we hardly knew ye’! CEDIA Expo 2018 wrapped up this past Saturday and after three days of running between meetings and walking the show floor, I emerge relatively unscathed. The bottom line – this first Emerald Exposition-produced show was a bit of a mixed bag with some positive elements and some dropped balls. But overall, most came away satisfied that it was a good show.
Welcome to San Diego for the first for-profit CEDIA Expo, the first Expo to take place under the full control of professional show producer Emerald Expositions. It is also the last CEDIA to be held in San Diego, at least for the forseeable future. Next Year, the show moves back to Denver, one of the locations that is considered most popular with CEDIA members.
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.
Just What the Heck is Going On Here?On Tuesday we learned that select properties of EH Media – owner of CEPro, Commercial Integrator, Security Sales & Integration, Campus Safety and others – had been acquired by Emerald Expositions (the new owner of the CEDIA Expo). Earlier this year, U.K.-based Future plc, a global media company, acquired U.S.-based NewBay Media – parent of Residential Systems, Sound & Video Contractor, AVTechnology and others. And almost exactly one year ago, IFA – producer of the largest consumer electronics trade show in the world (held in Europe) – “partnered” or acquired a significant stake in NAPCO Media’s consumer technology division – parent of Dealerscope, Technology Integrator, and Connected Design.
So that’s three of the top custom integration trade media companies all acquired within the last 12 months. What the heck is going on here?
Monoprice, the company most successful at pursuing a low-price, cut-rate strategy in regards to cables, adapters, and accessories, and the bane of many upscale cable companies in the consumer electronics space, has continued to grow and expand, now adding housewares and home goods to their growing assortment.
A new report by The Information has roiled Amazon, punching a hole in the concept that users of their Alexa-powered smart speaker devices will use them to buy billions of dollars of goods through voice ordering. According to sources from inside Amazon, the company is disappointed that only about 2% of users of their devices use them for voice-enabled shopping – a result that throws shade at the company and industry analysts who predicted a tsunami of voice-powered purchases. The company’s spokesperson disputes the report.
In June, after significant outreach by many Strata-gee readers, we posted our take on the Monster Products, Inc. (Monster) S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which Monster sought to launch its own Monster Money cryptocurrency in a major shift in the company’s direction. This SEC filing by Monster was at the end of May, and our story [see: Is Monster Money a Massive Mistake?] was posted June 13th.
We have just discovered that days after our story appeared, Monster received an SEC staff letter dated June 15th titled “SERIOUS DEFICIENCIES.” But that’s not all we discovered…
Control4 Corp. announced today that it has appointed Charlie Kindel, an ex-Amazon executive in charge of their Alexa project, to fulfill the role of Control4 Senior Vice President of Products & Services. Kindel is replacing Eric Anderson, who announced his retirement recently after holding the same role since 2012.
[Read more…] about Control4 Announces Appointment of Charlie Kindel, ex-Amazon
Transformative Engineering, an innovative black box solutions provider, announced today it has been awarded a DPL Labs Seal of Approval for its model HLE-4K, an HDMI 2.0 extender. The company says this is the second Seal of Approval its products have been awarded by DPL Labs, a testing and certification organization.
SnapAV, the unique national manufacturer/distributor of custom integration products based in North Carolina, announced on Tuesday that it has launched a media over IP solution designed to offer a uncommon combination of tremendous flexibility along with simplicity. Part of their Binary line, this 900 Series Media over IP solution delivers 4K UHD content with HDR support from any number of sources to any number of displays.
